


Once Upon a Dream

by objectlesson



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Awkward Kissing, Disneyland, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Time, Jealousy, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-03-30 09:03:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13948272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: “M’not gonna half-ass our fake relationship,” Louis almost snaps, voice sharp with a defensive edge, like Harry wandered too close to a bruise with needy fingers. “Now kiss me again. We’re gonna make every shitty tourist here wish they had stayed in the Midwest. We’re gonnaburn Disneyland downwith our gay. ”Harry shuts his eyes and opens his mouth, because he can’t fucking saynoto Louis.--Or, a fake dating AU where everyone is lying and they happen to be at the Happiest Place on Earth.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HurdyGurdy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HurdyGurdy/gifts).



> Oh my god...so this happens??? First off, this is a record for me, 17k in three days, and not just three days of nonstop writing, but three days of being out and about and living my life pretending I wasn't dicing headfirst into the craziest pressure cooked writing adventure of my LIFE. But I can't leave Jen without something fun to read while she's in Europe, so it just kind of happened. 
> 
> Jen: Happy Birthday.I know you love fake dating as a trope, so a few days ago I was like, what if I write the Disneyland trip fake dating premise I'd been throwing around for awhile for Jen? It can't be that hard, right?  
> I WAS WRONG, IT CAN BE THAT HARD, and as a result, this is A LITTLE BIT OF A MESS. I hope you like it anyway, and know a second chapter with SEX is coming soon to a theater near you. I love you very much and am so so so grateful to have you in my life, so here, take this broken fic as a token of my gratitude, and behold how MUCH MY WRITING SUFFERS when I don't have your Britpicking skills and general enthusiasm in my court. 
> 
>  
> 
> Blake: thank you THANK YOU for reading this over and editing it and putting italics HTML for me which is a bane of my existence because I use SO MANY ITALICS. Thank you for believing I could crank out 17k the same weekend I had two million other things scheduled. Thank you for everything. I can't wait to kiss you at Disneyland. 
> 
> Everyone else: I'm sorry for this. Jen is my beta but I wasn't gonna have her beta her own Birthday Present so as a result, this story is little rough around the edges. I hope you still enjoy it.

“M’not gonna half-ass our fake relationship,” Louis almost snaps, voice sharp with a defensive edge, like Harry wandered too close to a bruise with needy fingers. “Now kiss me again. We’re gonna make every shitty tourist here wish they had stayed in the Midwest. We’re gonna _burn Disneyland down_ with our gay. ” 

Harry shuts his eyes and opens his mouth, because he can’t fucking say _no_ to Louis.

 

——

So far, Harry has learned three things in LA: 

The state of California is somehow bigger than the _entire_ UK and as a result, everything in it is massive and inconveniently spread apart so it takes _literal hours_ to get anywhere. 

He doesn’t actually care about number one, because he’s having so much fun here he’ll suffer through any number of long, traffic-doomed car rides because it’s warm outside and there are In-and-Outs on nearly every corner, and Louis is with him, which makes everything feel miraculous and magical and odds-defying. 

He maybe shouldn’t have come on this trip at all, because being in love with your best mate is annoying enough, but it’s _especially_ annoying you're like, stuck in endless car rides and tiny hotel rooms with said best friend, and it’s a million degrees outside in February and he's newly sun-golden and keeps wearing tattered shorts you can see slivers of his thighs through and you’re both too broke to afford spots with more than one bed so you end up tangled up together in the very early morning like you're dating. But you’re not dating. 

In short, Harry is going _mad_. They’ve spent a full week bumming around LA to celebrate him finishing sixth form, and he’s reaching a point where he’s worried he might _actually_ do something stupid. Like kiss Louis, or pitch headfirst into the LA river (which isn’t a river at all, and is actually just a big, slimy green concrete basin that runs through the city like a mistake. Louis loves it. He’s told Harry ten thousand times how badly he wants to skate in it). Maybe it’s the unexpectedly relentless heat, or the overwhelm of being in a different country, or maybe it’s just Louis’s dashing smile or the way he idly, wordlessly tangles his hand in the back of Harry’s curls when they’re on the Metro like that’s a perfectly acceptable, normal thing to do, but whatever certainty Harry had before about keeping his horrible, years-long crush on Louis effectively a secret until the end of time, this trip has slowly tattered it. He’s hanging on by a thread, basically, and there’s not a thing to do about it because it’s not like he can get _space_ from his one and only travel buddy, even if he really wanted to. 

He’s just doomed to make a fool of himself, sometime in the not so distant future. He needs a break from Louis and he needs it stat, so he’s relieved when, on the eve before their scheduled Disneyland trip, Louis suggests they meet up with a friend. 

They’re staying at a dive motel right in the middle of Hollywood, so for dinner they just walk down to Sunset to buy bacon-wrapped hot-dogs from a hot-dog stand. “These things are brilliant,” Louis says through a greasy mouthful, auburn hair reflecting red-gold under the flashing marquee they’re walking past. Harry wishes he could reach out and touch, dip his fingers into that softness, so he rips his eyes away, chewing the inside of his cheek instead. “Like, they’re the best hot-dogs in the world, plus you get the double protein, plus they’re stupidly cheap and excellently greasy, and you can count on them being there at…what is it, nine pm on a Monday? Absolutely amazing,” Louis muses. “LA, I love you.” 

_Louis, I love you_ , Harry thinks miserably. “London needs to catch on,” he says instead, thoughtfully regarding his hot dog, which is overflowing with peppers and onions. “We need these by every tube station. Three alone just at Picadilly. When we get back, let’s start the business plans.”   
“Shit, we could make bank,” Louis says, arching his brows. “But to be honest, I just sort of want to eat them, I don’t want to _make_ them.” 

They argue the finer points of their entrepreneurial venture on the way back to the motel, and as usual, the second they step into the dingy lobby (there’s still a dusty, tinsel-choked fake Christmas tree up, creepy) their phones connect to the wi-fi and start to vibrate. Louis makes a show of sucking oil and ketchup off of his fingers before fishing his mobile out of his pocket, and Harry is still recovering from that visual when Louis asks, “Hey, so you know me’old mate Zayn? Pretty boy from Bradford who moved out here to be a model slash artist slash famous person?” 

“Yeah,” Harry says, distracted as he struggles to key open their door, half a hot-dog still uneaten in his other hand. “Never met him but you told me about him. Quiet lad, lots of tattoos, yeah?” 

“That’s him!” Louis says, following Harry into the room before dramatically flinging himself onto the bed, legs everywhere. He rolls over, grinning cheekily up at Harry through his fringe, which is a little overgrown. It looks nice, like most things do on Louis, and Harry aches a little, finishing his hot-dog and listening as Louis explains, “Well, I thought I wasn’t going to be able to see him this trip because he was out of town too on some fashion business thing, but apparently the director freaked out and sent everyone home so he’s back in LA now for a few days. And he _loves_ Disneyland and has been a million times. Down for him to come with us?” 

Harry’s initial response, however embarrassing it might be, is a reactionary surge of jealousy. Then he reminds himself he’s been _wanting_ a break from Louis, that it might be really nice to have someone else’s energy to balance the intensity of their dynamic so that he’s doing more than just like….staring at Louis and wishing he could bite his collarbones, exactly like he’s doing now. “Why did the director freak out?” he asks, still grappling with warring emotions, and Louis cracks up. 

“I dunno, he just said he did, apparently that stuff happens here all the time? Weird diva types, Harold. I promise Zayn’s not like that though, he's cool,” he explains. “Plus, it’ll be nice to have an expert there, I’m sort of overwhelmed by the whole multiple-parks thing.” 

“Yeah, sounds good. Invite him,” Harry says, kicking off his shoes and climbing on the bed beside Louis. “Also ask him if he knows how to get us fake IDs,” he asks, and Louis dissolves into giggles again, eyes crinkling and blue and cheeks flushed and _god_ , Harry _wishes_ it didn’t hurt so much to look at him, that every second they spend together didn’t feel increasingly tight with longing. Harry doesn’t _want_ to be like this, he’s _always_ resented his crush on Louis even before it turned into full blown love or whatever. Louis was a few years older and very gay and looked like fucking Frankie Sandford of the Saturdays, who was Harry’s last remaining celebrity girl-crush. Liking Louis seemed predictable and hopeless and when they became fiends he expected it to fade away, but the thing is, Louis is _so good at everything_ , it’s impossible not to like him. He’s a great singer, he plays piano and guitar, he has a million little sisters who all adore him, he’s excellent at footie, and he’s easily the most handsome boy in all of Yorkshire, and Harry feels lucky to be in the same _room_ with him still, feels like he wins the lottery every time he makes him laugh, and it’s only gotten _worse_ since he spent this week doing everything with him. Harry is fucked, basically, so maybe it’ll help, a little, to have Zayn here. To take the edge off. 

“Cool,” Louis says, grinning. “I’ll let him know.” 

They half-assedly watch SNL reruns and Louis furiously texts, and Harry tries hard not to compare himself to a boy he’s never met, even if Zayn, with his tattoos and travel and posh modeling career, sounds impossibly glamourous. He’s about to ask how some literal teenager from Bradford ended up modeling in LA when Louis sets his phone down dramatically and turns to Harry, expression curiously guarded, angles sharp and resolute. “Ok, he’s for sure coming,” he says, and it’s not a question, but there’s something hesitant to it, something unsure. 

Harry, who is very reactive where Louis is concerned, fights a wave or weird, muted panic rising in his throat and asks, “Is everything alright?” 

“Yeah,” Louis says, sighing. “But…hm. I want to ask you a favor.” 

“A favor,” Harry says dumbly, shifting his weight on the mattress, curling his arms around himself defensively. “What sort of favor.” 

“A weird one. I know it’s weird, and you _totally_ do not have to say yes. Like please. Tell me to piss off if you don’t want to do it. I won’t be offended,” Louis says evenly, eyes dark enough the blue of them is reduced to a thin, icy ring, and Harry wants to implode. 

_Do what?!_ he thinks frantically, heart in his throat. “It’s ok, just ask me,” he begs, hands clutching nervously in the sheets between then. Louis won’t look him in the eye, won’t answer right away, and the wait is fucking _killing_ him, giving him time to come up with one hundred worst case scenarios, one hundred awful things Louis could ask him to do, all centering around the highly likely possibility he _knows_ how Harry feels about him. 

_Could you actually not come at all tomorrow and just let me and Zayn have the day together?_ Harry imagines in Louis’s voice, the soft, apologetic way it gets when he’s worried he's letting someone down. _I’ve liked him for a long time and don’t want you third wheeling_ is the horrible fate he’s imagining for himself when Louis takes a deep breath and says, “So. First off, Zayn isn’t just a friend, he’s my ex.” 

Here it comes. Harry’s stomach clenches up, and he hears himself grinding out a flat “Ok,” strange and far away and clipped. Louis knows. _He knows_. He must know, it’s so _obvious_ ; after all, even right now they’re lying side by side, only inches away and it didn’t feel weird before but Harry feels weird now that he knows all the time Louis could _tell_ he’s always leaning into the heat of his body, always looking for an excuse to cross their ankles, for their arms to brush. Louis knew, all along, and never _said_ anything. 

“And he’s like…insanely good looking, don’t get me wrong, but m’not interested in anything with him like that. And we’ve been texting a bit tonight just planning and he’s being _sort_ of flirty and I just out and out told him I had a boyfriend, but I _don’t_ , obviously,” he explains, eyes shutting tight for a moment, flickering under their lids which _always_ makes Harry want to kiss them, press his lips to the soft, papery skin beneath his brows and feel that private motion for himself. It’s a shitty thing to feel in this moment, when he’s still confused and reeling and nothing makes sense. “So. I told him I was here with my boyfriend. As in, you were my boyfriend. Like, without thinking it through, so now he thinks we’re dating,” Louis explains in a rush, grimacing at the end and very nearly flinching away, like he’s expecting Harry to be _angry_ at him.

Harry is not angry. He has no idea what this means and the world might be ending, but he's not _angry_. He’s just…confused. And he hasn’t breathed in a few long seconds, which might be why he’s so suddenly so lightheaded. 

“You…you told your ex boyfriend we’re together,” he spells out, so treacle-slow it feels like he’s stumbling, falling. His mouth is dry and blood is pounding in his ears and when he blinks there’s static, so he shakes his head to dispel it and asks, “Why?” 

Louis throws his hands in the air before they fall back down onto his face, eyes hidden behind the splay of his palms so Harry cannot search his face for answers. “I don’t know,” he groans, voice muffled. “I was panicking and I didn’t think it through. Now, I either have to tell him I was lying and seem like a fucking arse, or you could…play along?” he finishes hopefully, peering at Harry through a crack in his fingers. 

“You want to act like…like boyfriends, tomorrow?” he asks, a whole new wave of anxiety bubbling up in his throat, palms suddenly hot and sticky. _Louis_ , wants him to act like his _boyfriend_. Is _asking him to_. His fucking ears are ringing, so he feels like he has to force himself to speak very quietly lest he actually _shout_. “And what would that entail?” he chokes out, not even able to hear himself. 

“I told you, you don’t have to,” Louis says miserably. “But like…it wouldn’t be _that_ terrible, yeah? Like how hard would be be to convince Zayn we were together? Just…hold hands? Act cute? Maybe a kiss or two at most?” 

Harry chokes on his spit. _A kiss or two?!_ He tries to imagine a whole day walking around a theme park, fingers twined with Louis, or their arms around each other’s waists. Nuzzling into his hair while they kill time in line, pressing soft, idle kisses to his cheek, the space behind his ear, his shoulder. God, it would be so _fucking easy_ , to play that role. He would be amazing at it. The most convincing actor who ever acted. “It’s not a good idea,” he makes himself say though, breath coming out in an uneven huff. And then, because he doesn't want to explain _why_ , “I don’t want…like, wouldn’t you be uncomfortable? Kissing me when you didn’t—like me? Like that?” he manages, hating how grief-sick and choked up it makes him to even say that. “I don’t mind but…I dunno. I don’t want you to do something _you_ don’t want to do.” 

“Hazza,” Louis says, a little exasperated, a lot fond. It soothes Harry to hear his name in Louis’s voice, which is a soft-edged thing that makes everything sound better. “I was the one who bought it up. You’re making it sound like snogging you a bit would be a chore, or something but like…you’re my best mate and I’m more comfortable with you than anyone else in the world. I wouldn't have suggested it if I had a problem with it…I just need to know if _you_ do.” 

Harry inhales for a very long time, so deep and shaky his fingers are tingling when he finally lets the breath go. He really, really wants to snog Louis. Like, just thinking that could be something he actually does, in the real world, _tomorrow_ , in the Happiest Place on Earth, is fucking _dizzying_. He wants to so badly, but maybe the only thing worse than not having Louis as his boyfriend at all, is having Louis as his _fake_ boyfriend. Getting to kiss him and touch him and flirt with him like he always wants, but _knowing_ it’s not real. It sort of seems like something that might murder him. 

But. But. Louis is _looking at him_ , the corners of his mouth upturned in the gentlest smile, eyes so warm at the same time they’re so blue, open and wide and vulnerable and Harry…Harry wonders. And it isn’t even the first time he’s wondered. If he could be wrong. If Louis _might_ love him back without knowing it, really, because Louis has had a lot of boys but no boyfriends, because Louis could be the kind of person who wouldn’t recognize love if it spent a whole week in cramped LA motel rooms with him, all because he’s sort of delusional and doesn't think he deserves good things. Harry usually tells himself this is all wishful thinking and projection, but still, in the back of his mind, he wonders. _What if I just kissed you once…and you could see how it feels, how we’re supposed to be together. How my bones fit the shape of your hands. Would you see, then?_

“I don’t have a problem with it,” Harry blurts, half-lying. “I’m down, if you are.” 

Louis looks surprised, eyes wide as he shakes his fringe out of his eyes. “M’absolutely down. _Thanks_ , like, this is a huge help. Didn’t want to have to tell Zayn I lied.” 

“Would rather just keep lying, very noble,” Harry says, giggling, suddenly drunk feeling and giddy, because _fuck_ , this is a terrible Idea but can it be _that_ terrible when he gets to _kiss Louis_? Who he has thought about kissing so many times the memory of longing for it is well-worn in his mind, like a dog-eared page. “So,” he says, lightheaded as he sits up, wiping his clammy palms on his trousers. “”How are we gonna do this? Should we practice?” he asks before snorting into his palm in disbelief, totally floored this is happening. 

Louis giggles too, sitting there on the bed for a moment and silently regarding Harry with barely restrained hysterics, eyes bright and smile brighter, and every lovely flashing light down on Sunset Blvd has nothing on him. “We could,” he says before rubbing his frantic grin with the back of his hand, like he’s trying to wipe it away. “But like. It might be sort of awkward, you know, to snog and then sleep together in the same bed? I just want things to go smooth, like, and also for us to have a proper rest before Disney,” he explains and yes, yes that makes sense but still, Harry feels something deflating in his chest because he agreed to kiss Louis, damnit, so he wants to kiss him _now_. He wants to kiss him and for it to _not_ be awkward so they can be _real_ boyfriends. _If you kiss me now, maybe you wouldn’t have to lie to Zayn at all because you’ll realize we’re actually meant to get married_ , he thinks, but he contains himself, nodding like he totally agrees. 

“Ok, sounds good. But like…won’t it be _more_ awkward if the first time we snog is _in front_ of Zayn? Won’t it look fake? I just…I’d be more comfortable if we had some practice,” he says shakily, stunned that they’re talking about this like a business transaction, like the rules of a board game. It hurts, sort of, but the whole of his body is too adrenaline-wired to feel that pain very acutely. It will catch up with him, though. It always does. 

“How about tomorrow morning, before we drive down, yeah? Then we won’t have to sleep on it, and can still get a few snogs in before we have an audience,” Louis suggests, and it’s very logical and all that so there’s nothing, really, Harry can say to counter it. 

“Deal,” he says, awkwardly holding out his hand for Louis. “Boyfriends tomorrow, best mates tonight.”

Louis takes his hand and they shake on it, and maybe _he_ can sleep on this but Harry certainly can’t. He feels like he’s gonna be awake all night, tossing and turning in that dual anticipation and dread, like Christmas morning, except all the presents are kisses from a boy he wants so badly, but who does not want him back. 

_Could be worse_ , Harry thinks, settling back into the pillows while Louis flips idly through channels, yawning, clearly not fazed in the same sick, tremulous way Harry is. They watch Storage Wars and crack up at every dumb, scripted line, and Harry realizes he sort of regrets agreeing to invite Zayn in the first place, when the whole _point_ of Harry even wanting him there is basically irrelevant now. Like… is he really so desperate and pathetic that his plan to get some space from Louis turned into him _pretending to be Louis’s boyfriend_? Like, how the fuck did he get himself into such an awful predicament? 

He sighs and squirms a little closer to Louis, who does not look away from the screen when Harry's head drifts to his shoulder mid laughing-fit. He also doesn’t pull away, and Harry wonders what that all means. Why he can’t _see_ how good they fit together, how _easy_ it would be. He lets his eyes drift shut, and tries not to think about tomorrow. 

—-

Harry doesn’t _really_ wake up at four thirty in the fucking morning. It’s hard to wake up when you’ve spent the whole night partially awake, sweating next to the love of your life while he snores and thrashes around in his sleep and steals your blankets and otherwise acts like the world is _not_ ending. No, when Louis’s horrible alarm goes off, and it’s still dark outside, Harry is pretty much already awake, opening his sticky eyes and jarring himself out of his half-dreams, chest feeling sick and shaky with sleeplessness. “Lou,” he says, checking his own mobile with bleary eyes. “S’like…four thirty am.” 

“Ugh. Yeah. We gotta get there early, yeah?” Louis rasps from his side of the bed, rolling over _entirely too close_ to Harry, who is still recovering from a night spent fantasizing about/dreading the inevitable kiss, which is supposed to happen today. “M’gonna shower, are you?” 

Harry is not, so he spends a few frantic minutes making sure all their clothes packed safety away in their shared duffle, so they can check out of this shit motel into another shit motel in Anaheim. He tries to get his breathing in order, too, since he keeps _forgetting_ to do it at all. But then Louis comes out of the shower, dripping down his chest onto a tiny, crappy white towel slung low on his hips and his hair a wet, pretty wreck, and Harry loses it all again, dizzy and scared and wondering _how the fuck_ he’s gonna survive a whole _day_ of Louis’s perfect skin in touching distance when he can hardly survive seeing him like this in the first place. 

They call their Uber, and after helping pack the trunk, Harry spends the whole long, dusk-light drive to Disney watching Louis chat up their driver about footie and wishing he wasn’t about to throw up. 

By the time they make it to the park the sun is up but it’s still early enough Zayn isn’t there and the gates aren't officially open, so they make do by bumming around Downtown Disney, which is basically a very big, surreal outdoor mall. Harry blinks in the grey dawn and says, “I think I need coffee?” Which is a statement he’s never uttered in his _life_ but like…he _needs_ something. Something to wake him up, soothe this nerves, do _anything_ to make the day seem actually bearable. 

“Coffee? Hazza _really_?” Louis asks, squinting at him like he’s mad and _maybe he is_ , but seriously, Harry feels delirious with lack of sleep and on the verge of at least ten bad decisions. It’s only two minutes into searching for a Starbucks that he realizes coffee is a an _extra_ bad decision, because he’s supposed to kiss Louis this morning, and he doesn’t want _coffee breath_ the first time he does that. He wants to be as appealing and perfect as possible, in the odd chance Louis _likes it_ and realizes they're actually soulmates or whatever. 

“Nevermind,” he mumbles, hands in his pockets at he steals glances at Louis while they wander around outside a Build-a-Bear with their luggage. There’s supposedly a coffee place nearby, but Harry doesn’t even _care_ anymore; he just needs to know what the _fuck_ is going on. “M’just gonna be honest with you,” he spills out, pulling at his own hair in nervous fistfuls. “M’really, really nervous about today. We haven’t even practiced kissing and Zayn’s gonna be here in like, twenty minutes and—“

“You want to?” Louis asks, cutting him off, hands jammed in his pockets almost apologetically. “Snog, I mean,” he adds, eyes cutting to the pavement, like he can’t even _look_ at Harry when they talk about this shit. 

“Yeah,” Harry say automatically, regretting the way it comes out immediately. “I mean, like. It would be a good idea. Get that out of the way so it’s not awkward when Zayn gets here, yeah?” he says weakly, rubbing his own lips with the back of his shaky hand, thinking _surely_ they’re not good enough. Surely, he can’t _want_ them. 

“Right,” Louis says. “So like…out here? Or I dunno, in the loo….where no one can watch us?” he says, shrugging and making a face like he’s not sure if Harry wants to be watched or not. He plays with the rainbow tag on his suitcase, hands visibly shaky which makes Harry feel a little better, at least. “Then we can get it over with and just…head on over to the lockers at the park to check out stuff in and wait for Zayn.” 

Harry stops feeling better. He doesn’t _want_ to be something Louis is eager to get over with, after all. He wants to be his forever, and the stark reminder he’s _not_ hits him in the gut, makes his already sick self shudder a bit in anticipatory nausea. “Yeah…yeah ok,” he makes himself say, stomach still in knots. “Loo is good.” 

“Alright then,” Louis mumbles, shuffling along the pavement, a vision among the American tourists all milling about with their visors and trainers. “So. Let’s find a loo.” 

They do, and Harry keeps waiting for something to change and his heart to stop feeling like an alien body intrusion trying to kill him, but nothing changes. He’s positively sweat-slick and very nearly hysterical by the time he and Louis find some washrooms, walking together in weird, surreal slow motion into a single wide handicapped stall. Louis locks it behind them, then turns to Harry. Everything smells like bleach and regret. “So, here’s your last chance to back out,” he jokes in an entirely not funny way, gaze flickering over harry in nervous half-glances. “Last chance before I kiss you.” 

“Just do it,” Harry says through his teeth, shutting his eyes and wishing this were happening under literally _any other circumstances_. Even then, he _still_ wants it to happen, so desperately. It’s less than ideal and this is not at _all_ the conditions he imagined his first kiss with Louis happening in, but still. He’d rather there be a sparkling clean toilet and weird graffiti and the stench of cleaner in the air while they kiss than no kiss at all. He’s a disaster, but he can’t care, because Louis is licking his thin, lovely lips, regarding Harry like a math problem or something else equally puzzling and unsexy. 

“Yeah?” he says, low and tremulous voice all breath as his delicate hands shuffle along the strap of their duffle before he hefts it to the ground. “You’re sure? It’s ok?” 

“It’s _ok_ , Louis, just please, do it, before I chicken out,” Harry says, about to throw his arms up in defeat, but then, _then_ Louis is taking a deep breath, stepping into his space, crowding him up against a wall in a fucking loo in Downtown Disney. “Oh,” Harry says because he cannot stop himself, universe suddenly filled with all of Louis's atoms, his softness and his brilliance and his good, sharp clean boy-smell flooding him, stealing his breath. He licks his lips reflexively and Louis studies him. 

“M’gonna,” he says quietly, perhaps to himself, and he dips in, and time stops.

Harry cannot fucking believe it. The fiber of the universe remains together as Louis Tomlinson kisses him, cups his cheeks between his palms ever so gently and presses their lips together, too soft to be real, too certain to be a mistake. Harry’s heart stops and he’s beside himself, shuddering into it, everything just sort of disintegrating away, ceding to the perfect pressure that’s Louis’s mouth against his, Louis’s hands on his cheeks, searing there for a few seconds before one smooths down his neck, steadying itself on his shoulder. 

He kisses him and kisses him, and Harry’s first coherent thought is _fuck yes_ before it’s _this is going on way too long_. He tries not to panic as Louis feels him out, pressing long, lingering kisses into him, slow and gentle and way, way too good to just be between best mates helping each other out. He doesn’t use his tongue or deepen it just yet, he’s only _kissing_ Harry, with his lips, his _breath_. It’s too much, but Harry can’t think straight long enough to say _no_ , to push him away and cop out of this mess. All he can do is frantically reach for his shoulders and hold him steady while he allows himself to be kissed, and kissed, and kissed. Finally, Louis presses their brows together and pulls away just a bit, exhalations coming out rapid and messy as he asks, “This ok? Can I keep going?” and Harry, because _he is a fool_ , nods. 

Then Louis is falling back into him, eyes fluttering closed and his mouth opening and _god_ , he can’t help it, Harry wants to taste, he wants _more_ , he wants them to be _boyfriends_ and they’re _not_ but he’ll be damned if he’s not gonna try and deepen this enough to drown in it, forget the reality, the circumstances. He flicks his tongue out, lapping into Louis’s mouth and _god_ , Louis catches it, sucks Harry into his mouth with a muted, wordless groan. 

Everything is wet and hot and mad and they’re _snogging_ now, honest to god snogging and Harry should _stop_ , he should self preserve and keep his dignity but he can’t, not with the hot wet slip of Louis’s tongue smoothing over his lower lip, the crazy, heaven-good taste of his spit. Fuck he is _so_ in love with him and there’s nothing he can do to but fall headlong into this, so he lets it take him. Lets himself be swept away, Louis’s fingers clenching in and out of loose, needy fists in his hair, like he actually likes it, like he actually _wants it_. 

Harry finally pulls away breathless, worried he's gonna start like, proper feeling Louis up because already his hands are doing weird, inappropriate things, like roving up his sides, threatening to push under the hem of his shirt, but even as he inhales desperately Louis is pulling him back in, like he’s determined to do this right. 

He’s gentle and firm all at once, guiding Harry’s head to turn, thumbing over the curve of his cheek, down into the ditch where his pulse is thrumming wildly in his throat. It’s _so much_ Harry is trembling, drunk on the way Louis tastes, salt and sweet and mint, the memory of his toothpaste making Harry’s tongue tingle. He ends up backed up against the wall of the loo, something digging into his back but who _cares_ , Louis is _snogging him_ , snogging him so fucking good he’s probably going to be ruined for any other kisses, forevermore. 

Finally, Louis pulls back again, breath shuddering out of him and their lips still close enough they ghost together as he says, “Are you doing all right?” voice hoarse and fucked out, which is totally hot and totally unfair. 

“Mmhm,” Harry mumbles, wanting more of Louis’s _breath_ , wanting his lungs to be filled with more nervous of his huffing, nervous exhalations. He wants it all, he doesn’t _care_ if it’s not real. “M’good. You’re a good kisser.” Then, because he remembers _why_ they're doing this, he colors fiercely and adds, “S’weird but not bad or anything.” 

“It’s _weird_?” Louis asks, giggling a little frantically, hands flexing where they’re still clutching Harry like he might duck out of this thing any minute and disappear. “Why is it weird that I’m a good kisser?! I’m insulted, Harold.” 

The sexiness of the moment shatters and dissipates into a different sort of tension, an anxious electricity that has Harry’s stomach all jittery, and even though their knees are close enough they’re brushing together and Harry can smell the bite of Louis’s nervous sweat under the spice of his cologne and his lips are still swollen from Louis’s _kisses_ , he feels like they’re just mates again, like they were never anything _but_. It’s so confusing, and Harry feels sick as he answers, “I dunno! I’m not surprised you're a good kisser, like, in general, m’just surprised you. Like. Kissed _me_ so good.” 

“M’not gonna half-ass our fake relationship,” Louis almost snaps, voice sharp with a defensive edge, like Harry wandered too close to a bruise with needy fingers. “Now kiss me again. We’re gonna make every shitty tourist here wish they had stayed in the Midwest. We’re gonna _burn Disneyland down_ with our gay. ” 

Harry shuts his eyes and opens his mouth, because he can’t fucking say _no_ to Louis. He lets himself be kissed, lets Louis hold him steady and suck his lower lip, he even lets him _push his fucking thigh_ between Harry’s leg because he doesn't even realize something like that could actually _kill_ Harry. 

Harry is starting to get dizzy and lose time and plan their wedding when Louis pulls away and shakes his head, cheeks pink and mouth wet as he murmurs, “We should stop, Zayn’s probably waiting for us already,” he says, shaking his head and fixing his hair, which Harry has been doing a very bad job of not running his fingers through repeatedly. 

“Yeah, of course. Good,” he says, knowing full well it hardly makes sense. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, taking a deep shaky breath and staring at Louis all flushed and mussed while he checks his phone. Flushed and mussed from _him_. From snogging his best mate. Is he that easily worked up or is he maybe, on some level, like…. _attracted_ to Harry? “Erm, where are we meeting Zayn?” he asks, rubbing his too-hot face with his too-sticky palms, overwhelmed by everything. 

“He’s in the…uh the Mickey and Friends parking lot? Told us to walk there so we can put our stuff in his car and then tram to the parks. Sound good?” he asks, jamming a hand casually into his hoodie pocket like he didn’t _almost_ end up with Harry’s _nail marks_ in his skin. 

“Sure,” Harry says, not remembering one bit of this plan. He just grabs his stuff and follows Louis out of the loo, adjusting his blazer and the shirt under it because his skin is all weird and itchy now, because he feels like _everyone_ can _see_ what they were doing, see Louis’s kisses on him like blood under a blacklight. They walk side by side in mostly silence, and Harry is sort of stewing in his panic, wondering if this is gonna work or if Louis suddenly _knows_ , now, knows from the way Harry kissed that this isn’t a game for him, this is love. 

He’s about to say something desperate and unrelated just to shatter the quiet when Louis beats him to it, eyes still fixed on the pavement under their shoes when he asks, “So…this is really alright? You’re not freaking out?” 

Harry is freaking out, of course. He could back out in this moment, maybe, but then he would miss out on future kisses with Louis, future chances to show him what a great fake boyfriend he is and potentially lead him to rethink the nature of their future together. He doesn’t want to _ruin_ his chances, however slim they might be, so he lies. “I’m fine, Lou. You can stop asking, it’s not a big deal, yeah? You need a favor and I’m your friend and it’s done. Plus, we’re at Disneyland. Bet we’re gonna be having such a good time eating candy and meeting princesses Zayn’s not even gonna be trying to get in your pants. It’s fine.” 

“Dunno. Zayn’s like…he wants what he wants and he pursues it. You’ll see,” Louis explains, shrugging. “M’gonna need you to have my back.” 

“I have it,” Harry reminds him, a little irritated. Like why the hell are they even hanging out with Louis’s very persistent ex if Louis is worried about it? What’s the point? He’s musing about this as they walk, wondering if Louis actually _wants_ to see Zayn, or if he just feels some sense of obligation to because he’s an old friend and they have history. 

“Ah, there he is. Shit, even more tattooed than the last time I saw pictures of him,” Louis says, squinting ahead of them across a wide plaza. There are a lot of people and Harry recognizes no one, so he scans the crowd for tattoos. There’s one skinny, thoroughly inked up boy with a bleached shock through his otherwise dark fringe standing by handful of tall escalators leading to and from the parking structure, but he couldn’t possibly be Zayn. First off, he’s dressed like a fucking magazine spread, and no one their age has that much Versace, even a model. Secondly, he’s absurdly, unfairly good looking, like this chiseled perfect face and dark, melted-chocolate eyes with lashes so long Harry can spot them from all the way back here. There’s no way this is Louis’s ex he doesn’t want to hit on him. He’s worlds prettier than _any_ of the boys Louis pulls back home, and _definitely_ prettier than Harry. Like in zero universes would any human believe Louis would date Harry when _this guy_ wanted him. Harry is a potato in comparison. If this is Zayn, their plan is blown. Harry hopes he’s Aladdin’s extra or something. 

“Z!” Louis shouts, holding his arms up and punching the sky. “Oioi! What on _earth_ are you wearing, is that _paisley_?!” 

“It’s Gucci!” Aladdin shouts back, and _fuck. Fucking fuck._ Harry is suddenly _consumed_ by panic, sweating and shaking and probably turning grey and red at the same time, like a blushing corpse, if corpses could blush. 

“Louis, _that’s Zayn?!_ ” he hisses, tugging at Louis’s elbow. “What the fuck!” 

“What do you mean what the fuck? Yeah that’s him. Fashionable rich bloke.” 

“He’s…fuck,” he Harry cuts himself off, because he doesn't know what Zayn is. There aren’t words, he just knows what he _isn’t_. “You dated that guy?” 

“What’s your problem?” Louis whispers fiercely, narrowing his eyes. “Don’t be a twat.” 

“M’not! I just…why don’t you want to date him _now_? He’s like, a gorgeous adonis model. He’s never gonna believe you’re interested in me.” 

“Hazza, maybe m’not shallow, yeah?” Louis snaps, as if that’s a comforting thing to hear. There’s no more time to talk about this grand mishap in their weak ass plan anymore, because They’ve caught up to Zayn, who is holding his toned, tattooed, flawless arms out to hug Louis fiercely, turning his angled, stubble rough, flawless face into his hair and _fuck_ , Harry is doomed. That tiny intimate movement alone has him sick with jealousy, and Louis isn’t even his boyfriend. But maybe he’s supposed to act jealous? Maybe that would help? Maybe it would help _more_ if he actually believed Louis had a good reason not to date this perfect specimen or humanity? 

“Good to see you babes,” Zayn mumbles in a soft, sexy, flawless voice, and Harry wants to _die_. He’s never heard a Bradford accent sound so _bored and posh_ at the same weird time. 

Then, he remembers what the fuck he’s supposed to be doing. “I think I just heard another guy call my boyfriend babes,” he chimes in, grinning awkwardly in what he hopes is a friendly but confident manner. He feels like comes across more like a skull’s grimace, or maybe a dimpled hyena. 

“He calls everyone babes,” Louis retorts, pulling away and holding his arm out to Harry, who mechanically sidles into it. “Zayn, this is my Harry. Hazza, Zayn.” 

Zayns hug is gentle and sincere and he smells like clove cigarettes, all of which feel like good omens, so Harry tries to relax a little. “Nice to meet you, Zayn. You’re outrageously handsome, sorry if I can’t look you in the eye.” 

“Hey, now I’m jealous,” Louis jokes, hooking his arm around Harry’s waist and pulling him close enough to press a soft, messy kiss to his cheek. It makes Harry's stomach plummet and heat bloom in the cradle of his pelvis, and yeah, he’s probably gonna die today, at Disneyland, and his ghost is gonna have to move into the Haunted Mansion or something. “Zayn is probably used to hearing that though, yeah?” he asks without actually looking at Zayn, gaze still fixed on Harry, eyes crinkled and smile soft around the edges. Harry loves him, but he _hates_ that he’s looking at him this way, that he has a whole _day_ to look forward of sweet, private, loving glances like this that are rooted in _lies_. 

“Nice to meet you, Harry,” Zayn says, nodding to him carefully. “You guys want to bring your stuff up to the car? S’another thirty minutes until the park opens, we have time.” 

Louis nods and takes Harry’s hand and up the Daisy Escalator they go, and Harry supposes this is just the way it’s going to be. Exciting and excruciating all at once, and totally unnecessary because Zayn is going to call bullshit on this charade any minute now, right? Ask Louis why the fuck he’s dating a potato when he could join him on Mt. Olympus or whatever. 

They drop off their luggage and tram to the park, and the whole time Louis and Zayn catch up, and Louis holds Harry’s hand and squeezes it occasionally, and Harry _panics_. This isn’t going to work. It can’t work. Zayn is too pretty. But Louis…Louis is _selling it_ , really. He keeps shooting Harry these soft, fond glances that make his stomach liquify, and when Zayn says “How long have you two been dating,” and Harry flatlines, Louis effortlessly answers, “Four months, but I’ve liked him since we met. So it feels like longer, yeah Haz?” 

“Yeah, feels like forever,” Harry says automatically and in a fucking anxiety haze, and Louis smiles at him reassuringly, and _what the fuck is happening_? Why is this so easy for Louis? Is it because he did theatre in college and is a good actor? Or is there something else? Or is Harry just crazy? 

Just in that moment, the tram shudders to a halt, and Louis reaches down for the briefest of moments and grazes his nails up Harry’s thigh, which is entirely too much. The overhead announces: _Please stay seated with the doors closed until the tram comes to a full stop. Then gather your belongings, watch your step, and exit to the driver’s right. Thanks for traveling with us today, and we hope you have a happy and memorable visit to the Disneyland Resort!_

It’s not until this moment that it really hits Harry that they’re at fucking _Disneyland_. That the backdrop of his entire day spent pining and possibly going to cardiac arrest will be against the backdrop of singing animals and overpriced popcorn and just…general overstimulation. The thought should induce more panic, but it’s almost calming. Like, the whole day is gonna be surreal no matter what. Whether or not he’s fake-dating Louis. 

“So, how did you two meet?” Zayn asks as they shuffle off the tram and into the throng of people all heading to the park gates, so many Mickey-ears and stretch pants and strollers Harry feels like America is about to swallow them whole. “I wanna hear all the sordid details,” he adds, and Harry wishes he could speak, but his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth, everything dry and pathetic and he shoots an _help me_ look to Louis.

They get in the queue and Zayn stares expectantly, and Louis, Louis is fucking _brilliant_ at this lying bit, because he’s not _really lying_ , not flat out anyway. “Well, we got introduced through our mutual friend Niall, actually,” he explains, eyes landing on Harry’s with this broad, open sort of heat to them that clutches deep in Harry’s gut. They _did_ meet through Niall, this is _real_ , at least on some level. Blurring fiction into reality in Fantasyland and _fuck_ , Harry knows this isn’t good for him, but there’s a lick of something like triumph in his chest, between the nervous swell of his lungs. “He’s a happy-go-lucky Irish bloke…but he’s also like, weirdly introspective and likes _Star Trek_ and stuff? Anyway he knew we were both gay so he connected us as friends and like…right away, since day one…I thought Harry was the fittest boy I’d ever seen. No offense, Z.” 

Harry chokes on his spit, and Zayn chuckles low in his throat and says, “No offense taken, mate. He’s way more you’re type than I am. I get it.” 

Harry looks frantically to Louis, wondering if this is Zayn ceding whatever claim he thought he had on him, meaning their charade can fade into nothingness, forgotten somewhere between the main entrance plaza and Main Street. Which is not exactly what he wants, but is _easier_ that whatever he’s supposed to do. Instead, Louis curls his arm around Harry’s lower back and pulls him close, kissing his cheek again like that’s…just ok to do. “He’s exactly my type.” 

“Oh my god, stop,” Harry giggles frantically, melting into Louis anyway because he can’t _help it_ , he’s an absolute mess. “I thought Lou was so fit too,” he blurts, because _well_ , if he’s doing this he’s doing this, and that's the truth. “But he was a bit older, I thought he wouldn’t be interested, really. That he was too good for me or something?” 

Louis shakes his head. “Never,” he says gently, and Harry’s heart just _breaks_. Explodes into a fountain of blood or something. 

They make it to the check in point and a cast member scans their tickets, and then, suddenly, they're _in_. Surrounded by tourists and California teenagers all milling about, taking pictures in front of the train, blocking traffic and taking up space but everything is just like…so _big_ and _beautiful_ and manicured and Harry hasn’t been to a Disney park since his parents took him to Paris when he was like six. It’s super overwhelming and great and it would be awesome if he could breathe, but as long as Louis is casually holding his hand, that’s just not gonna happen. “So what do you guys want to do, like, what’s your priority?” Zayn asks, gently guiding Harry and Louis out of the middle of everything and towards one of the archways leading to Main Street. “Like, are you into rides or parades or food? It’s good to have a game plan.” 

“I love rides but Harold here is scared of roller coasters,” Louis says, brushing his knuckles down Harry’s cheek idly, like it comes so _naturally_ to touch him like this, like it isn’t eating him up inside. Harry swallows thickly, trying not to be too _touched_ that Louis remembered he hates thrill rides. “So maybe like…kiddie rides and just walking around the park? Oh, you wanted to meet a princess, didn’t you?” Louis asks. 

Harry blinks. Yes. Princesses. He wanted to meet a princess. Zayn is staring at him expectantly but without judgement, so he tries to quit fucking dissociating and adds, “Right. M’not picky, I don’t care which one, I just want to meet a princess.” 

Zayn nods sagely, perfect arms crossed in front of his perfect chest. He’s wearing this silver silky shirt unbuttoned down his sternum with a pair of alien green John Lennon sunglasses hooked into them, and it shouldn't look good, but Harry suspects everything looks good on this guy. “Easy enough. Disney coasters aren’t real coasters anyway Harry, you should be fine…but let’s start small. Get fast passes for Space Mountain, which gets an awful queue later in the day, and then hit some smaller, easier rides to warm up? Sound reasonable?” 

“As long as my boyfriend meets a princess,” Louis says, and Harry’s whole body gets hot and shaky at that word, wave after thrilling wave washing over him in spite of himself. _It’s not real_ he tells his heart, which is beating out of his chest like an excited dog. _He’s lying, please relax_. 

His heart does not listen. 

They head off to Tomorrowland, then, Harry and Louis’s fingers twined and their palms flush, Zayn ahead of them in his Versace drop crotch sweatpants and Dragon Ball Z socks. “Are you doing alright?” Louis asks as they turn off of Main Street, past the Plaza Inn towards the Astro Orbiters, which are spinning majestically through the air like something from retrofuturist album cover. “Still ok m’treating you like my boyfriend?” 

“Is it working?” Harry hisses, hand sweaty in Louis’s as they shoulder past a lady holding a crying toddler in each arm, face stoic and sunburnt. “Does he buy it?” 

“Yes. He absolutely does, you’re doing a great job,” Louis whispers, breath hot against Harry’s ear. 

“Louis…he’s really so fit though. Why aren't you into him?” Harry asks, because fuck, he _has_ to know. There has to be some _reason_ Louis is spurning the affections of an objectively _perfect looking_ human.

“I’m not…I just don't like Zayn that way,” Louis explains, shrugging, keeping his voice down so Zayn doesn't hear even though he’s weaving his way through the crowd like an expert, a good three metres or so ahead of them. “I _know_ he’s beautiful and all that but it’s just. Not the way I think about him. So don’t be weird about it,” he mumbles, squeezing Harry’s hand. “Also, I realized we need like…a code word. In case you freak out and need a break from me being all over you.” 

“I’m _fine_ ,” Harry says, annoyed because _he doesn't need a break_. He needs a full-scale revaluation on Louis’s part. He needs a wedding. He needs Louis to kiss him in front of the castle, or something. He doesn’t _know_ what he needs. “I don’t mind you all over me. S’fine, it’s not that different than we usually are.” And that’s sort of a lie, but Louis nods along, pushing his lips like he’s never considered their friendship might _already_ cross boundaries. 

“Would still like a code word,” he grumbles as they approach Space Mountain, following Zayn up the ramp to the fast pass distributors, where crowds of people and their kids are milling about, laughing and shrieking and not at all consumed by dread or anything.

Harry takes a deep breath. “Ok. A Safe word. Fine,” he sighs, jamming his ticket into the dispenser in exchange for a fast pass, which he jams into his pocket. “Erm…Tinker Bell. Because you're Peter Pan,” and it just _comes out_ , guilty and true and so _transparent._

Louis is delighted. “Aw! You think I’m Peter Pan? Zayn!” he shouts, and Zayn rounds on them, elegant brows raised into the most infuriating perfect pair of parabolas. “Hazza called me Peter Pan.” 

Harry grinds his teeth, dizzy with the scent of sugar and frying oil and sunscreen. “Does that make him Wendy?” Zayn asks easily, grinning a brilliant grin. “Also, you guys are gross.” 

“Yeah, maybe,” Louis says, dragging Harry into him, nuzzling his hair and _god_ , he smells so much better than sugar and frying oil and sunscreen, so Harry _has_ to inhale from him, smiling stupid and bubbly and reflexive as he buries his face in Louis’s neck, where the skin is soft and warm and maddening. “Should we do this one?” he asks then, gesturing to a ride. “Buzz Lightyear or whatever? I love Toy Story”.” 

“Astro Blasters,” Zayn corrects, pushing his stupid little sunglasses up his unfairly straight nose. “It’s a competition one, it’s fun. Let’s do it. It’s not scary,” he says then, nodding to Harry like he’s genuinely concerned for his well-being. What a _weird_ human, so good looking and so nice, but still, supposedly out to steal Harry's not-boyfriend even though he thinks he’s his real boyfriend. Harry can’t pin him down, but he can’t pin anything down, really, not with Louis’s hand in his own, easy and natural, like they’re two halves of a forcibly separated whole. 

“I’m gonna kick your arse, Wendy,” Louis says, grinning at Harry with the prettiest flash of teeth. 

“Bet you kick his arse every night, yeah?” Zayn jokes, and _fuck that_ , Harry is playing dirty now, no holds barred, after all this is _their_ petty ex’s drama and he’s just an innocent _pawn_. 

“I’m gonna _destroy you both_ ,” he says very seriously, letting go of Louis’s hand to point at him, eyes narrowed. “Prepare your arseholes. Prep with lots of lube,” he snaps, and then, because he can and he wants to and this day is happening whether or not he’s ready to, he leans forward and kisses Louis flush on the lips, soft and fast but _hot_ , like a flame just before it goes out, glowing blue before is snuffs out into smoke. He pulls back and Louis looks stunned, and if Harry could smirk, he _would_ , but he can’t so he just grins. “M’gonna end you.” 

It’s a lie, but so is everything else, today, so he rolls with it. 

—-

Zayn kills them both at Astroblasters, and after that they do Autopia and the Finding Nemo submarines, one of which is very fume-heavy and the other of which is very claustrophobic, so everyone feels sort of sick after that. They end up sitting around a table at in Tomorrowland Terrace sharing a Sprite, and by this time, Harry has sort of resigned to today. This is….just the way it’s going to be. Zayn is going to be puzzling and contradict himself a bunch all the while remain _irritatingly_ beautiful, and he's going to flirt weakly with Louis, who is going to fawn over Harry, in turn. And Harry can’t do anything about it because as much as he’d like to believe he has dignity and the capability to declare _Tinker Bell_ the second it becomes too much, he just _doesn’t_. Because at the core of all this, he’s love with Louis, and Louis is at least _pretending_ to love him back. And maybe some evolved, future version of Harry could resist such a thing, but current Harry is seventeen and weak and pitiful, and he just _doesn’t have it in him_. All he can do is turn into a super absorbent sponge an soak up all this long coveted attention. Louis plays with his hair as he talks to Zayn about Uni, and Harry just _zones out_ , loving the soft, careful way Louis toys with him, fingers gentle against his scalp. Yeah, he can deal with this. He can even enjoy it. It’s easier to take what he’s getting than to lament when he’s not, so he just _becomes_ Louis’s boyfriend. Leans into the touch and lets his tired eyes shut tight, turn to Louis and respond to every stomach-churning time he calls him baby, like that’s his _name_ , who is he. It’s easy to play pretend, when Louis makes it so _good_. 

“We have time for one more ride before out fast passes work, but we shouldn’t leave this half of the park until since it will be a bitch to get back…so does The Matterhorn work? It’s an easy line and it sort of bridges the gap between Fantasyland and Tommorowland. Harry, are you ready?” he asks, stabbing his straw into his cup repeatedly, a hypnotic, endless motion Harry hyper-fixates on, so he doesn't spend too much time looking dreamily at Louis’s lips. Which he's allowed to do today, while he’s pretending to be his boyfriend, but there _is_ such a thing as overkill. 

“No, m’ready. Plus, would be good to get a proper roller coaster in before Space Mountain, yeah?” he says, and Louis hums gentle in the back of his throat, looking at him like he hung the moon, and _damn_ , he’s good at this whole theatre thing. 

So, they do the Matterhorn. And Harry thinks it will be fine, but it’s _not_. So Far, Harry has learned two things about the Matterhorn: 

1.It’s not a fun jaunt through the Alps and there is no Julie Andrews, it’s dark and spooky and fast. 

2\. There’s a fucking _abominable snowman_ in there and it’s definitely animatronic but that does not stop it from being _positively terrifying_. 

Furthermore, Harry was not expecting it, so for the duration of the ride following the abominable, he’s suffering from not only terror, but _shock and betrayal_. They then plummet down the hillside into _water_ and he’s terrified, and shocked, and betrayed, and _all wet_. It’s the worst and any other day, Louis would give him a hard time about his blazer being all soggy, but today Louis is his fake boyfriend so the second they're off of the infernal hell-mountain and Harry utters, “I _hated_ that,” Louis _hugs_ him instead of teasing him, which is so startling Harry just…stands there and lets it happen. 

“Fuck, the whole time we were on it I felt bad, kept thinking it was the kind of thing that scared you,” Louis says, crushing Harry into him, arms wrapped tight and firm and solid around his back. Zayn steers them to a nearby smoking area and lights up nonchalantly, and Louis occasionally smokes and could join in, but instead he just kisses all over Harry's face, his temples, lips soft and persistent. Its dizzying. “M’sorry, baby. But god, your screams were hilarious. So shrill I think you shattered me’eardrum. Very impressive.” 

So, he is making fun of him, but like, _at the same time_ as he’s hugging him tight, _coddling him_. “They were _reasonable_ screams given what I was going through,” Harry grumbles, grinning up at Louis in spite of himself, stunned he's looped close enough in his arms he can make out every shade of blue in his irises, every mole and freckle on his smiling face. “The music in line made it sound like it was going to be a _Sound of Music_ themed ride! I expected like, a snow and a convent of singing nuns. But there was a loud monster and it was awful,” Harry explains, choking on Zayn’s smoke and realizing he can just…put his face in Louis’s clothes and breathe trough that. So he does. “M’traumatized,” he mumbles as Louis cards a hand through his hair and _god_ , why can’t he see how very _good_ they are at being boyfriends?!

“Well, nothing jumps out at you on Space Mountain…s’just a tame roller coaster in the dark. And it’s sort of…space adventure themed? Like, not in a scary way,” Louis explains, playing with Harry’s curls all the while with one hand, while the other drums fingers at the base of his spine, so _natural_ , so nonchalant. “You up for it? I get if you’re not, the Matterhorn was unreasonably scary and m’ still shaken up a bit meself.” 

“You babies,” Zayn mumbles fondly, putting out his cigarette in the ashtray, looking like a Abercrombie Model as he does it. “Harry, you’ll love it. S’one of the best rides here.” 

Harry has already committed to a day of slow torture so he agrees, thinking nothing could be worse than that abominable snowman. Anyway, it’s hard to authentically complain when Louis is fawning over him, touch so genuinely, deceitfully _tender_. They bypass the main line with the fast-passes and end up inside the structure more quickly than Harry has time to mentally prepare for, so he clings to Louis’s arm, both hating and loving that he _can_. “Let’s text Niall a selfie,” Harry announces as they draw ever-closer to boarding. “He’ll appreciate the Star Trek vibes.” 

And the whole day has been confusing, really, but this is the point at which Harry _really_ feels a shift. Because when they pull out Louis’s mobile and duck together to take a picture, Louis _kisses him_. Turns his head and grins into the curve of Harry’s cheek before pressing a lazy kiss to his dimple, breath huffing out soft and sweet and _sure_ , that’s fine to do in front of Zayn who actually thinks they're dating, but it’s _absurd_ to send something like that to _Niall_ , with no context. Niall who thinks they're just mates, Niall who introduced them. What the fuck is he gonna _think_ , getting a picture of them looking like an honest to god couple, like is he going to even _care_ about the Star Trek-esque backdrop? Or is he just going to think this is some weird, out of the blue announcement of a relationship that isn’t even _real_? 

Harry ponders it as they board their spaceship, he and Louis sharing a row with Zayn behind them on his own, like a third wheel. He wonders why Louis would be _advertising_ their fake relationship, spreading the implication beyond the constraints of this day, beyond Zayn, their intended audience. He wonders if Louis maybe _wants_ other people to wonder if they’re together, even though he can’t think of a good reason _why_ he’d be interested in giving that impression. 

Unless, of course, it makes him feel crazy and giddy and proud. The same way it makes _Harry_ feel to know Niall is seeing an actual photos of Louis’s actual lips on his own actual cheek, a kiss suspended in time, or maybe the goofy outtakes after the fact, when Louis started giggling but stayed close, pressing his smile into Harry’s skin, like he wanted it to imprint there. Maybe there’s some subconscious part of Louis that _knows_ this is right, _knows_ it feels good, is how they’re _supposed_ to be. Maybe Louis wants Niall to know that’s happening, the same way Harry does, even if he _knows_ it’s mad. 

Maybe Louis wants it to stretch beyond today, beyond Zayn’s prying eyes. Maybe it’s not _just_ for Zayn. 

Their spaceship jerkily leads them into glittery darkness, and Zayn is behind them and can’t _possibly_ see, but as they ascend, Louis’s hand sneaks onto Harry’s thigh, squeezing reassuringly, thumbing along the seam of his jeans. And Harry doesn't make any _assumptions_ , necessarily, but he wonders. 

Space Mountain is actually super fun and only _minimally_ scary, but maybe Harry likes it because Louis leans into him in the middle of it, lips ghosting against the shell of his ear as he asks, “Too fast? You doing ok?” at the exact moment Harry was starting to get claustrophobic and panicky. The high rasp of Louis’s voice even as he shouts about the music sounds soft, somehow, and that softness smoothes Harry’s anxiety away, replaces it with a different, more acute case of butterflies. 

“M’fine,” he yells, letting himself be jostled into Louis’s side, for their faces to nod together, whipped cold by the wind. “It’s dark but like…not scary.” 

“Good,” Louis says, smoothing his fingertips up the inside of Harry’s thigh and _yeah_ , no one can see that, not Zayn, not even Harry himself, because it’s far too dark to even see his own _body_. So that touch…it wasn’t _for_ anyone, it just _was_. For Harry. Or maybe for Louis, for _himself_ , because whether or not he realizes it, his fingers want to touch Harry's skin, dig into muscle and find a pulse. Harry shivers and their space ship hurtles into a tunnel, the lights suddenly brought enough Harry is blinking, caught in the act of thinking of things he shouldn’t be thinking of. 

They check out their picture after the fact, and Harry and Louis are leaning so _close_ , smiles giddy and tears at the corner of their eyes. Harry stares, and he stares, and as Louis takes his hand to guide him back out into the park, he _wonders_. 

—- 

It’s not the only time Louis does something Zayn can’t see, so Harry does not stop wondering. As they walk through the park Louis holds his hand whether or Zayn is beside them or ten feet head of them, navigating traffic like a pro with his eyes affixed on their destination as he weaves steadily towards it. As they sit down at the River Belle Terrace for BBQ, midday when the sun is too hot and high and everything has a dreadful line, Louis touches his knee under the table, toying with the rip in his pants, sneaking fingers into it to feel skin even though Zayn is like, _immersed_ in the menu. As they get in line for Indiana Jones, Louis hugs Harry from behind, burying his face between his shoulder blades, and he doesn’t even _let go_ when Zayn has to take some dumb modeling agency phonecall. It’s like, Louis is so good at playing this part, so _dedicated_ to the role, that the way he interacts with Harry isn’t even dependent upon their audience. He’s his boyfriend regardless of Zayn’s observation, which Harry _supposes_ makes the whole thing seem more authentic, but at the same time, is _absurdly_ confusing.

Especially because he’s seen no indication whatsoever that Zayn is even really interested in Louis in a romantic way. Like he was prepared to be beating the guy off with a stick all day if necessary, but upon learning Louis was supposedly taken, Zayn was just…respectful, pretty much. Harry hasn’t noticed any flirting or anything and he’s _looking_ for it, so this whole _thing_ is just….something’s _off_. He’s not sure why Louis is so fucking committed to the role if Zayn isn’t even interested, let alone persistent. It leaves him feeling like he’s _missing_ something, like he’s the one in the dark, and as good as it is to have Louis’s warm hands on him pretty much all the time, it’s definitely making him suspicious. Like, does Louis _like_ touching him or is it all just a very involved method acting exercise? They have no space or room to ask, really, so he’s just stuck wondering. 

Indiana Jones, although advertised as a “cheesy, not fast at all ride” courtesy of Louis and Zayn, ends up being way too realistic and way too scary and Harry’s skin is crawling after the fact so he makes everyone sit down. Zayn, who feels guilty for not disclosing everything one might need to know about said ride, offers to go get everyone pretzels and soda, so meanwhile Harry and Louis sit along the edge of a planter overlooking the Rivers of America, squinting in the sun. Zayn might not be watching them all the time, but this is the first _real_ moment they've had alone together, and Harry _wishes_ he wasn’t still recovering from that horrifying, archaeology-gone-wrong ride so they could actually _talk_. 

“Well, I think things are going well so far, yeah?” Louis says eventually, turning to him with a hopeful expression on his face. “You still doing alright? Haven’t heard the code word yet, so I've just been winging it.” 

“Safe word,” Harry corrects, grumpy because rides shouldn't have giant snakes _and_ skeletons all at once. Cruel and unusual, emphasis on the cruel. “Louis…Zayn doesn’t seem into you _at all_ , no offense. I don't think we need to be going as hard as we are, really.” Louis’s face falls, and Harry sort of wants to die. “Not that it’s a problem,” he adds hastily. “Better safe than sorry, yeah?” 

“M’I making you uncomfortable? I know it’s a lot, just…when I get into character m’in character. I can’t switch back and forth, otherwise it’ll seem…fake, or something. Sorry if I’m getting carried away,” he mumbles, defending himself and _fuck_ Harry is so confused, hands shaky from the ride and from the situation and from so many other things he can’t even _tell_ anymore. 

“No, no, it’s _fine_ …I’m not uncomfortable. It’s not that. I just…” Harry trails off, because _what is it_? What can he possible even _tell_ Louis about this without exposing himself? _It’s just that it was easier to do this when it was clear it was all pretend, that we were putting on a show? But now, I’m sort of falling apart because m’so, so in love with you and you’re acting like you love me back._ He clears his throat, shaking his head and adding, “Just want to make sure everything is ok. That you’re doing alright.” 

“I’m doing great,” Louis says quietly, without looking at Harry. He looks tan and perfect and windswept as a breeze lifts the fringe off his brow, which is furrowed in concentration as he surveys the water ahead of them, cormorants dipping in and out of the darkness of it as _The Columbia_ cuts a course around Pirate Island. He’s taken off his hoodie so he's just in a blue and white striped shirt now, biceps golden and flexing as he fixes his hair, and _fuck_ , Harry can just _touch_ him, if he wants, how maddening, how _wonderful_ , how…heartbreaking. He swallows a sudden, thick lump in his throat as Louis adds, “I mean…m’at Disneyland with my best friend in the world and an old mate from home and we’re having a great time. Nothing to complain about, really.” 

“But…I dunno. Is like, your experience less good because you’re pretending to be my boyfriend the whole time? I don’t…I want to take anything from you, guess,” Harry mumbles, thinking _I just want to give you things. Everything, actually. My heart and stuff._

“Hazza,” Louis mumbles, reaching for him and pulling him into a rushing, clumsy embrace. “You’re not ruining anything, love. You’re…this is fine. It’s fine. M’having fun.” 

It’s in this moment Zayn comes back bearing cokes and pretzels, brows raised and eyes narrowed. “Honestly, you two are gross. Can’t leave you alone for two seconds before you're snogging.” 

“We’re not snogging,” Louis says defensively as they spring away, caught even though they're not _doing_ anything, and if they were that would be normal because they're boyfriends, right? Harry’s heat pounds and he wipes his mouth like he's guilty, and Louis adds, “Piss off, Z.” 

“Pissing off, _fine_ ,” Zayn mutters, shooting them a knowing sort of glare. “So, next order of business after we finish these should be Critter Country. There's the Winnie the Pooh ride which is _boss_ , it’s just like…an acid trip but there’s nothing scary so Harry should be fine. And then, Splash Mountain? Are you up for that, Harold?” 

“No one is allowed to call him Harold but me,” Louis says easily, the certainty of it sending spikes of sensation into Harry’s gut, silencing him. “Splash Mountain is the one with the huge drop, yeah? Can you handle that, baby?” he asks, jostling Harry gently, fingers digging into his side and _god_ , how is it just…so easy for him to transition back to this? Harry is reeling, but he manages to swallow and nod. 

“There’s also singing animals, yeah? I think I can deal with a drop if there’s singing animals,” he mumbles, leaning into Louis and stealing a quick, needy kiss. Its just a chaste press of lips at the corner of his mouth but Louis turns to catch it full on, eyes sliding shut, skin smelling like sunshine and sunscreen and sun and _ugh_ , Harry is in love and has no dignity and he doesn't even care. 

“There are more singing animals than you can possible process,” Zayn says, deadpan while he picks at the sole of his Gucci Loafers. “And after this, let’s find you a princess.” 

“Pease,” Louis jokes, kissing Harry’s _nose_ , his chin, the corner of his eyes where the skin is bunched up and tear-wet from the wind. “Get my princess a princess,” and _fuck_ , Harry is going to _die_. This is the end of him. 

But as they get up and start the trek to Critter Country, hand in hand and the impression of Louis’s lips still seared onto his skin, he realizes he _cannot_ care. It feels too good, and for better or for worse, he's going to stay here, taking whatever Louis has to offer. _This is fine_ , he thinks. _I’m fine. I’m having fun._

—-

Splash Mountain is _full_ of singing animals and that does soften the blow of the drop a bit, but regardless, Harry is _soaked_ after the fact and so is Louis, so to dry off they ride Winnie the Pooh. It might be Harry's favorite so far, if only because there’s a room full of mirrors which gives him the opportunity to see for himself how close Louis is sitting, how sweet and natural his hand looks resting on the plane of Harry's thigh. He's giddy by the time they get off, sort of dazed and love-drunk because really, he’s spent an entire _day_ at a posh theme park with the boy he loves touching him all the while, and it’s not his _fault_ he's feeling this way, that the lights look especially bright and Louis's eyes look especially blue. 

He's not even pretending to act anymore, he’s just existing as he is, which is in a pervasive state of wishing Louis was closer, wishing Louis were _his_. So as the sun begins to set, dropping low along the horizon and staining the sky an egg-yolky orange, he sidles closer to Louis, turning his face to hide it in the Louis's hair, breathing him in. “Hi,” he says, voice muffled, reckless in how close it is to the smooth heat of Louis’s skin. _This is fine. I’m fine. I’m having fun._ “What’s next?” 

Louis turns to him and kisses his forehead before saying, “Pirates of the Caribbean, apparently. Zayn’s favorite. He says it’s got a drop in the dark but its minor compared to Splash Mountain…but I’ve got you, I’ll hold you hand.” 

Zayn is well out of earshot, so Harry’s stomach coils hotly, because this, this is all for him. It exists between him and Louis and whatever it means, it’s still private, and nothing can take that away from him. These are the scraps upon which he will survive. 

He tries to be ok with that, as a streaky polluted darkness settles over the park. Everything is getting lit up, even more brilliant and glittery than before, and Harry is _certain_ Zayn has stopped paying attention to them, but even then, Louis won’t stop _touching_ him. Thumbing over the bones in his wrist, playing with his fingers as they wait in line, picking bits of fuzz out of his hair his sweatshirt left after being pulled over his head. He keeps thinking about all the metro rides all over LA they took before today, and how many times Louis would touch him idly then, in transit, and how this isn't that different, really. They've always been pushing boundaries, even if they haven’t talked about it. 

It sort of makes Harry _angry_ , almost, if he thinks about it. Like, Louis has _always_ got his hands on him. He was forever getting lost in idle, teasing touch _well before_ they decided to fake-date to fool Zayn. And Harry has _been_ here the whole time, hanging on every word, every meaningless, fleeting brush of his fingers. It seems unfair, really, that he could have all _this_ and still not _really_ have Louis. _We’d be so good together_ he thinks for the thousandth time that day, gaze swiping skyward to fix on the tiniest sliver of moon before it disappears behind a smudge of clouds. _If you'd just let this be real life, instead of some weird, elaborate fantasy._

The Pirates line shifts from the winding outside grotto into the dark interior, and the air smells like chlorine and stale water and mildew, which is oddly calming. They eventually board their boat and their trio gets seated with another couple, ( _a real one_ Harry thinks, somewhat bitterly,) and as they settle into their bench, the girl turns to them and says, “Sorry if this is annoying, but like, I just wanted to let you know what a _gorgeous_ couple you two are. Like so cute. Just the cutest.” 

Louis stares, brows raised in surprise and his arm slung along Harry’s back, in case anyone was wondering what couple she’s referring to. Harry can’t stop the bubble of panic that rises in his throat, nor the explosive blush blooming on his cheeks as Zayn nudges his thigh with his own knee, snickering, but Louis just _takes it_ , takes the whole thing like he's been waiting for it his whole life. 

“Aw, thanks babe, thank you, s’really sweet,” he says, hand shifting over Harry’s shoulder and cupping him on the back of his neck, thumb digging into the divot alongside his spine, perhaps in warning, in reassurance. “It’s all him, really, if m’being honest. He’s just..yeah. He's the most charming boy there is,” he explains like he actually believes it, gaze cutting to Harry, soft and vulnerable around the edges, like a confession. It _scares_ Harry it seems so real, and he really realizes he can’t _tell_ where reality ends and begins because Louis is _that_ brilliant of a liar. And that’s…that’s really an awful way to feel, actually. 

“Stop,” he mumbles, shifting away from Louis, so their thighs aren’t pressed flush, because even that subconscious contact seems like too big a lie to sustain, now. “M’not that charming.” 

“You’re insanely charming,” Louis says easily. “S’one of the reasons I love you,” he adds, and _fuck_ , Harry can endure touching, he can endure kisses, he can endure nuclear warfare, probable, but Louis saying _I love you_ , and not meaning it one bit? That’s like a knife through the heart. He feels cold and stunned and gutted after he says it, still processing the horrible sting too much to even really react to it. 

“Awwww,” the girl says, clapping her hands together and all but melting, and in seconds, their boat is rattling along the dock before it pushes into the bayou, and everything gets quiet and eerie and they’re all reduced to whispers. 

Harry uses this new darkness as an opportunity to cry. 

The air smells like hospital food, since there’s like, apparently a restaurant in here, which is totally distorting Harry’s sense of space and time, but whatever. There are bigger, more pressing matters at hand. For one, Zayn is ignoring both of them, retreating to the interior of his posh Versace leather jacket so he can text without the glow of his mobile interrupting anyone on the ride, but _still_ , Louis is feeling up Harry’s thigh, kneading it gently, thumb digging rhythmically into his quadricep, either reacting to the tears or unaware of them completely. Like, it feels so good but whatever giddiness Harry was feeling before has rapidly evaporated in this spooky, food-and-chlorine darkness, and he's all fucking confused and miserable again. Louis isn't just lying effortlessly and valiantly to _Zayn_ about the nature of their relationship, he’s lying to _random hetero strangers_ who just happen to be riding rides with them, and that…that seems like it’s crossing a line, somehow. He’s saying he _loves_ Harry, and that’s…it’s too much. Harry feels sick just thinking about it. 

_Tinker Bell_ , Harry thinks about saying, but he doesn't actually _want_ to say it, because in spite of all of this he doesn’t _want_ Louis to stop touching him or telling random hetero strangers he’s in love. He just. He wants it to be real, is all. And that’s what's at the heart of this whole, painful thing. 

Harry wants it to be real, but they're surrounded in endless, excessive artifice. This restaurant isn't real. This bayou isn’t real. The old man on his creaky chair on his creaky swamp-house porch isn’t real. They're about to plummet down into pirate territory and Harry shouldn’t be anxious because he _knows_ its not real, but if today has taught him anything, it’s that he’s not very good at parsing out the real from the pretend. He knew the abominable snowman wasn’t an actual living thing, but he still was totally freaked out it was gonna rip itself out of the moorings of that Matterhorn and come kill them. He knew whether or not he looked into the eyes of the idol on Indiana Jones, the ride was gonna get scary, but _still_ , he clapped his hands over his face just in case. And he knows, _he knows_ Louis doesn't actually love him. He knows it. But no matter how many times he tells himself, he’s still confused and stupidly, embarrassingly hopeful with every new development of this charade. Louis touches him when Zayn isn’t looking? He thinks _maybe_. Louis tells a stranger he loves him? he thinks _do you really? Could you? Please?_

God, its so fucking pathetic. Harry is too busy hating himself and feeling guilty that he’s not even fazed by the drop, which is swift and long and dark but not deep. The food smell is gone and now there’s nothing but clean, stagnant water, musty and sharp all at once. “You alright?” Louis asks, breath hot and sweet against his ear, and Harry shuts his eyes. 

“Yeah,” he lies, wiping his leaking eyes with the back of his hand, grateful for the darkness. “M’alright.” 

—-

By the time the ride ends and they make it out and back up into New Orleans Square, it’s fully dark and the fireworks are starting soon, so most of the walkways are clogged with people and strollers all bedding down for the show. “S’terrible to do anything around here during fireworks time, but Tommorowland is usually weirdly empty, if you want to try and fit Star Tours in.” 

“Sounds good, lead the way,” Louis says easily, taking Harry's hand because by now, that much is second nature. Harry lets it all happen, still stunned from Pirates, or perhaps from his revelation on Pirates. That he doesn't know what’s real and what isn't and is slowly going mad and all his hyperbolic suspicions that today might kill him might have not been all that hyperbolic at all. 

It takes them forever to get virtually nowhere, and they stay lodged in foot-traffic for like _twenty minutes_ outside the Golden Horseshoe in Frontierland, and the _whole time_ Louis thumbs gently and invisibly over Harry’s knuckles and…it’s too much. Harry is hungry and tired and overwhelmed and lovesick and there are _too many people_ , and all the while, Louis’s touch is the most tender and absolving eye in the middle of this storm. Nothing is real and Harry is about to explode, and if they needed any _more_ external stress on this whole thing, there’s a loud, park-wise announcement that keeps playing, informing them: “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: you’re invited to share a dazzling celebration with us at Disneyland! In just 20 minutes, Tinker Bell will bring the skies above Sleeping Beauty Castle to life as never before. Please join us for the fireworks spectacular _Remember… Dreams Come True_.” 

_They don’t_ , Harry thinks, grinding his teeth. _Not all the way. Maybe the boy you love snogs you breathless in the loo and it changes your life forever, but it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe he tells random girls he loves you, but he’s lying. Dreams stay dreams._

“Hey,” Zayn says, turning his head to shout at them over his shoulder. “Things are pretty blocked up and it’s only gonna get worse through Main Street…It might be better to turn left here instead and cut through Fantasyland? There's also a good place to stop and watch the Fireworks if you’re into that and just don’t want to deal with the crowds.” 

“Honestly, I just want to get away from all these people,” Harry explains, an honest to god anxiety-attack feeling imminent. His voice is clipped and strained and even if Louis isn’t his boyfriend he’s his _best_ friend so he notices the inflection, pursing his lips and squeezing Harry’s hand reassuringly. 

“Yeah, let’s get you out of here. Z, let’s head left and find a place to sit,” he says, thumb digging into the frantic pulse in Harry’s wrist, like he’s trying to still his heart, and Harry _knows_ it’s an attempt at calming him down but at this point it only makes things worse. Louis is such a _wonderful_ boyfriend with his kind, guiding hands and concerned eyes flashing in the moonlight, under the haze of neon and mist floating in off the Rivers. He’s the _perfect_ boyfriend, really, but he’s not _Harry’s_ boyfriend, and that truth seems impossible to stomach right now, so painful and cold as it sinks into his gut Harry wants to curl up around it, double in on himself. Instead of watching as husbands drag their wives through the crowd, mothers drag their children. So many extended arms and stumbling feet and here Louis is with him, guiding him gently, their hands entwined. 

Harry feels choked up, so he casts his gaze skyward, and hopes nothing leaks out. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: you’re invited to share a dazzling celebration with us at Disneyland! In just 15 minutes, Tinker Bell will bring the skies above Sleeping Beauty Castle to life as never before. Please join us for the fireworks spectacular _Remember… Dreams Come True!”_ the overhead reminds them, and he has to bite back a very real _shut up!_ a hot, fierce lump in his throat. 

The crowd is thinning out and Zayn is peeling off ahead of them, heading with purpose towards a bench alongside the Rivers and just beyond the exit gate of Thunder Mountain Railroad, which is still running, whistling and chug-chugging along in the darkness. The muted screams from it are making Harry even _more_ tense and nervous, and as he continues to not escape the crowd, and his palm continues to get sweatier and sweatier where it’s pressed to Louis's something just…breaks. 

He rips his hand away, and _stops_ , hyperventilating there in the middle of a fucking walkway, feet quite suddenly rooted to the cement. “Tinker Bell!” he manages to get out, and it’s not very loud and the crowd is louder, but Louis must be listening, because he stops too, hand still suspended in the space between them, eyes wide and shocked. 

They hold their gaze for an excruciating moment, until Louis gets hazy through Harry’s tears. “I can’t do this,” he finally says, shaking all over, fingers carding frantically through his hair and stomach a latticework of guilty, shamed knots. “M’so sorry, Louis, I thought I could do it but I _can’t_ , I just can’t. It’s too much,” he blurts, everything spilling out of him now that the dam is broken, frustrated tears overflowing from his eyes more rapidly than he can wipe them. 

“Ok, that’s ok Hazza. I’m sorry too,” Louis says cautiously, taking a tentative step towards Harry. Zayn has disappeared into the throng of tourists and it’s just the two of them, stationary while the world shifts around them, so many strollers rolling by, light-toys blinking in blue and red and green, balloons bobbing aimlessly on strings, lost but tethered, “Let’s…can we get out of the walkway?” Louis asks, holding out his hands like he’s trying to coax a dog out of the road. 

“No,” Harry says, feeling like he's incapable of movement, of _anything_ , really, save for standing here trying to breathe right, knowing full-well he’s _acting_ like a stupid, crazy stray. He can’t think though, there’s blood pounding in his ears and his _heart_ hurts, and none of this is _real_. 

Before Louis can say anything, the overhead interrupts: “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: you’re invited to share a dazzling celebration with us at Disneyland! In just 10 minutes, Tinker Bell will bring the skies above Sleeping Beauty Castle to life as never before. Please join us for the fireworks spectacular _Remember… Dreams Come True!”_

“ _God_ I wish that would stop,” Harry snaps, burying his face in his hands and taking a few shaky deep breaths before sort of losing it again and exploding, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your plan or blow your cover I just…I can’t do this. Can’t fake it,” he explains in a messy rush, and Louis has crept close enough to gently encircle Harry’s wrists with his fingers and tug him out of the walkway, so they’re at least not blocking anyone anymore. The breeze coming in off the Rivers is cold so Harry’s adrenaline shivers turn into full scale _shakes_ , his teeth chattering and his heart in his throat. “I’m sorry,” he manages to get out again. 

“Please stop saying that, _I’m_ sorry, I’m sorry I pushed you, sorry I talked you into doing something you didn’t want to do,” Louis says, looking absolutely miserable, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. “I didn't mean to do that.” 

“It would have been fine!” Harry yelps, throwing up his hands, totally done with trying to seem anything other than what he is, which is a fucked up, panicky, in-love mess, sick with paranoia and guilt and self-deprecation. ”It would have worked with someone else, probably, but I can’t…I couldn’t. Fuck. I’m just. I feel _insane_ , Louis. Like. _None_ of today made sense, Zayn didn't seem into you and you kept touching me when he wasn't looking and I _know_ it sounds crazy but I felt—I _feel_ —like…like you’re in on something together? Like you’re making fun of me behind my back?” and as it comes out he _knows_ how unreasonable he sounds, but there’s an _anger_ bubbling in his throat, real and raw and bleeding. 

“What?!” Louis squeaks out, splaying a hand dramatically on his chest like he cannot _believe_ Harry could accuse him of such a thing. “What are you even _talking about_? Zayn and I—“ 

“What are _you_ talking about!” Harry snaps nonsensically, throat tight with frustration. He's _mad_ now, like _officially_ , every insecure, self-hating thought he's had today coming to a head and rupturing inside him. “What are you and Zayn up to? Are you _trying_ to mess with my head, was this like…a plan to fuck me up and laugh at me, at how much—” and Harry’s voice cracks before it’s gone, replaced with a rush of hurt, frantic tears, a single aching sob. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: you’re invited to share a dazzling celebration with us at Disneyland! In just 5 minutes, Tinker Bell will bring the skies above Sleeping Beauty Castle to life as never before. Please join us for the fireworks spectacular _Remember… Dreams Come True!_ ” the overhead announces, and Harry just cries harder. 

Louis is very quiet, staring at his scuffed Adidas where they’re turned in on the pavement, braced shoulder-width apart as if for impact. “Haz…fuck. M’so sorry. I got carried away, I couldn’t…I didn’t know how to stop, once we started, I didn’t know how to _tell you_ —” he starts, everything sounding thin and breathy and _what_ , what did he not know how to tell Harry, what awful, cruel thing? _I didn’t know how to tell you it was all a joke, that I just wanted Zayn to see how messed up you are over me, how obviously in love with me you are. It was just a bit of fun._

Harry is past caring how pathetic he looks so he lifts up the hem of his shirt to wipe his eyes and nose with, openly weeping now as he bitterly chokes out, “Tell me what?” 

Louis makes sound, wordless and frustrated, like Harry should _know_ already, like it’s written all over them both. “That m’in love with you, obviously,” he finally says, throwing his hands in the air before turning to the fence they’re standing beside, gripping it to steady himself, turned away from Harry and towards the ink-black sprawl of the Rivers. “I know this is a shite way to find out, but—”

“Wait, what?” Harry asks, only now processing what just came out of Louis’s mouth, trying to swallow the impossibility of it and failing. “You…” 

“I’m in love with you,” Louis snaps at him, turning on his heel to face him, arms crossed over his chest, eyes hard and wet and defensive, black until they’re the sort of blue that’s too cold to look at without feeling a sting. “I have been forever, have _always_ been, and I was gonna use this trip to tell you but I keep getting scared and freaking out so Zayn and I staged this whole thing so I could like…see how you might feel about the _possibility_ of dating me. But I got fucked up and carried away in it and like…I know it was an _awful_ , manipulative thing to do. I do. But I was so _scared_ , Hazza, and it just felt so good to have you close, and—“ 

Harry kisses him. Just steps into Louis’s space and throws his arms around his neck and crushes their mouths together like waves against a shore, and he’s still so _mad_ but he’s also _stunned_ , and maybe this isn't real either and he’s dreaming all of the sudden, but he doesn’t care. In this universe, Louis loves him. In this dream, Louis is scared. And _fuck_ , Harry wants to suck that fear right out of his mouth, he wants to _drown_ in the possibility of having been _wrong_ all this time. He wants Louis, and Louis, and Louis, so he kisses him, fierce and hot and rough, with fists in the front of his hoodie and his his teeth in his lips, so it’s punishing like a bite as long as it takes Louis to realize what’s happening and open up.

Then, it’s a storm, and Harry’s tears aren’t the only slickness between them. Louis takes Harry’s face between his palms and pulls him closer, dips him back, sucks his lower lip before he lets go to paw down his neck, claw up his shoulders, groan and whimper and sob like the whole of the day and every feeling therein is condensed into this moment, magnified and burnt into something molten. 

Harry pulls back to breathe, still shaking so hard his teeth are chattering nearly too hard to talk. “Stupid, you’re so _stupid_ ,” he whispers fiercely, pressing his brow into Louis’s, stumbling with the force of it and throwing them both off balance. “You should have just told me, could have told me _ages_ ago, instead you did _this_?! Louis….the whole day…this whole _trip_ I’ve been going crazy.You drive me crazy,” he says in a rush, every word seeming messy and foreign and not exactly what he wants to say, distorted by smoke and mirrors so just as the sky goes dark, he tells him, “I _love you_ , all I do is love you, you _twat_.” 

And as Harry pitches forward to catch his lips again, the fireworks start, streaking across the sky in a million spectacular explosions of light. 

Everyone is watching, presumably, but them. They snog and snog, Harry pushing Louis up against the fence until he’s too weak to sustain the pressure and Louis flips him, sneaking his hands into his blazer and over the frantic thud of his heart and then, moments later, after a stifled, frantic sound, under his teeshirt to touch skin. 

Harry comes apart under him, tears still sliding down his cheeks, even as Louis thumbs some away, licks up others. “I love you, love you, love you so fucking much,” he mumbles as he kisses messily down Harry's throat, flinching at some of the louder fire-works but still, never pulling away. “M’ _such_ an idiot, absolutely _terrible_ , I just…I didn’t know how, I thought you didn’t _know_ ,” he explains, mouth hot and open over the shift of Harry’s Adam’s apple, stubble scouring pale skin as he mouths as far down as his collar bones. “Thought I had to _show_ you. That if you saw. You might figure it out.” 

It’s so overwhelming, too much to process, really, so Harry just trembles under Louis’s desperate mouth, and stares down at him through a tear-bleary haze. The fireworks light Louis in increments, so he keeps getting perfect, brilliant flashes of him: his mouth open and pink, his lashes fluttering against the cut of his cheekbone, the wild, flashing half-moon of his smile. “I thought _I_ had to show _you_ ,” he gets out at one point, fingers tangling in Louis’s hair to bring him up again to kiss. “But then you brought this stupidly pretty ex boyfriend of yours to Disneyland and fake-snogged me in the loo and I went crazy an stopped being able to think right and just…I dunno. I felt apart. I couldn’t handle it,” he mumbles, still making excuses even thought it’s _over_ , every weird or confusing or incomprehensible thing that happened today smoothed into irrelevancy by Louis’s warm hands, his slick, searing tongue. 

Harry sucks at it a bit, feeling drunk and dizzy, and when Louis pulls away he says, “Z’s _not_ my ex, he’s just…he’s a friend who wanted to help. This whole thing was his idea, and an absolute _shite_ one at that…I shouldn't have lied. I should have just told you how I felt, that it was _killing_ me to sleep next to you every night.”

“Fuck,” Harry blurts, so _beside_ himself he can hardly breathe, still _astounded_ that Louis is right _here_ , under his own greedy palms, saying things he’s been thinking all fucking _week_. “ _Fuck_ those beds. Seriously. I was going mad. Wanted you so, so bad Louis, wanted you to _touch_ me, to _fuck_ me—” and it must be too much for Louis to hear, because as the fireworks drown them out and light falls around them in a gold-green cascade, he surges into Harry like the tide, kissing him so deep Harry whites out, breath gone, sense gone, heart somehow making up for all of that, swelling so huge he feels like he’s bring broken apart by it. 

“I love you,” he mumbles in between kisses, hands all over Louis’s shoulder’s, slipping into the neck of his hoodie to steal the heat of his skin. “M’still sort of mad at you, but I don’t care, just love you.” 

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Zayn appears beside them, holding two Churros and looking unfazed, fireworks lighting up the alien-green lenses of his sunglasses where they hang from the neck of his shirt. “Here,” he announces, offering them. “Think you two can like, disentangle enough to take the snacks I brought you? Fireworks are always better with a churro, I think.” 

“I hate you,” Harry snaps immediately, not meaning it at all but still saying it somewhat sharply, though not sharply enough Zayn that bats an eye. “Why the fuck did you encourage him to lie to me?! I was basically losing my mind all fucking day.” 

Zayn nods, taking a bite of his own churro, chewing, and swallowing before clapping Louis on the back in what is probably supposed to be a congratulatory manner. “Hey, it worked though, yeah?” he asks, and no one has anything to say about that, so he just grins sagely. “You guys are gross,” he adds, turning his back to the fence and leaning against it nonchalantly. Then, in a singsong, Disney voice. “Dreams really do come true!” 

Louis explodes into wild, hysterical laughter, and Harry’s heart thrills as he watches him, because that laugh is _real_ and it’s _his_ , for him and about him and not _at_ him. It’s something he can treasure. So he reaches for Louis and pulls him down into a kiss, stealing the smile from his lips and swallowing it whole, for safekeeping.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is lads!!! Sorry for the wait, and also sorry for the inevitable typos. This is just what happens when you write gifts for your beta!!!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has been sticking around to read this. Keep in mind this apparently takes place before the HTH got replaced with the Guardians of the Galaxy ride, or at least in an alternate universe where that horrible transformation happened at all. 
> 
> Also, thank you to Lauren/Fullonlarrie for teaching me I didn't actually have to manually put all the HTML in. You've saved me and everyone else literal hours of our precious lives. Thank you!!!

They watch the rest of the fireworks show cuddled close, cinnamon sugar dusting Harry’s swollen lips, which are still tingling from Louis’s kisses, his firm, deliberate bites. It’s the best feeling in the world and Louis’s face is lit up in color with every new explosion and Harry has really never seen anything so fucking beautiful in his whole life. He watches Louis more than he watches the actual fireworks, and he _knows_ that’s like, the cheesiest thing anyone can do, but they look prettier in the pupils of Louis’s eyes, somehow. His whole body is thrumming with a wild sort of adrenaline and it’s hard to keep still so he lays his head on Louis’s shoulder to get closer, to smell his skin in the gun-power thick air, and Louis tears his eyes away from the spectacle to nuzzle into him, mouth soft and wet against his hairline as he murmurs, “You don’t even know how good it feels to know you’re not doing that because you have to. That you actually want to.” 

“ _Erm,_ I do know,” Harry tells him, sidling closer, looping his arms around Louis’s strong, narrow waist and pulling him close. “Because like…same.”

“Very eloquent,” Louis murmurs, voice drowned out to near-nothingness by the repeated boom of explosives. His breath smells like heaven and Harry is dizzy on it, needing a taste so he pitches forward, sucking at Louis’s tongue, rolling his hips a bit because they’re just _snogging_ but it’s so deep and filthy it _feels_ like fucking, bone-deep and blood hot. “Baby,” Louis groans, pulling away, eyes shot and bright and lovely. “We’re gonna have to stop, there are like, _kids around,”_ he mumbles, even as he mouths greedily at the corner of Harry’s lips. chasing cinnamon sugar, perhaps. “But tonight…at our motel? I cannot fucking wait,” he whispers in a soft, filthy voice, and _fuck,_ Harry is _losing_ it. “M’gonna put my mouth all over you. Touch you everywhere. Can hardly stand thinking about it,” Louis rasps in his ear, liquefying him, setting fire. 

“Fuck,” Harry whines, hands clutching reflexively, making fists in Louis’s hoodie.”I want you to do whatever you want to me. I want it, m’yours, every inch of me, just want you,” he babbles nonsensically, half-hard in his fucking jeans in the middle of Disneyland and _god,_ this is an awful idea but its not _his_ fault Louis is so _hot_ and also apparently so _his._ Louis shudders against him, heart thudding hard under the pressure of his forearm. 

“God,” he hisses, catching Harry’s mouth again, stealing his breath. “I love you,” and Harry…Harry could get used to hearing that, Louis’s voice snagging around those three words, raw and broken and so obviously _real._

The fireworks show ends in a flurry of smoke and fire and applause, and it’s magical, it really is, Harry can’t deny that. Still, _everything_ feels magical with Louis’s hands on him, Louis’s lips in his hair, Louis’s spit on his tongue. The crowd starts moving once the sky is dark again, but they stay pressed to the fence, arms around one another, chests pressed flush so their hearts can listen to the others frantic thud, Zayn standing somewhere behind them, finishing his churro and wearing his sunglasses even though it’s dark. “You two let me know when you’re ready to move,” he says eventually, sounding very patient. “And know m’like…fully supportive of you guys just standing there staring into each other’s eyes dorkily.” 

“Thank you, Z, so generous,” Louis says, deadpan, voice rumbling through Harry he’s pressed so close. “How many hours do we have left until the park closes? Do we even have _time_ to make it to California Adventure or should we just say here? What’s even there?” 

“An actual roller coaster, which Harry can’t ride, a haunted-hotel themed drop tower, which Harry can’t ride…” Zayn starts, trailing off. 

Harry spins around in Louis’s arms, totally giddy and emboldened and ready to fight whoever the fuck he wants now that he knows he has everything he’s ever wanted. “Heeeeyy. I’ll ride a fucking roller coaster, I don’t even _care._ I’ll do whatever. M’on top of the world.” 

Louis giggles and Harry leans back to catch that giggle with his lips and Zayn is rolling his eyes, and honestly, Harry doesn’t even _care. “_ There’s also a fun water ride but it’s cold and dark now, and some slower, chill rides on the boardwalk and in A Bug’s Land…but if you want that sort of thing we might as well just go to Fantasyland, yeah? It should have calmed down by now anyway, kids are starting to get tired.” 

“To Fantasyland!” Harry yelps, punching the still-hazy sky with a triumphant fist. “Plus, I still need to meet a princess, remember?” 

“Absolutely,” Louis says, kissing Harry’s cheek, making his knees weak all over again. “Princess time. Onto Fantasyland!”

And together they begin their trek, Zayn leading and Harry and Louis close behind, arms twined loosely. 

—-

Every previously stressful or overwhelming thing about Disneyland has totally evaporated now that Harry knows Louis _loves_ him, knows that he doesn't have to keep wondering why the world doesn't make sense. It _does_ make sense now, every single one of Louis’s loaded glances, his charged eye contact, his lingering hands. It’s all because Louis _wants this too,_ Louis’s hunger is real, his longing is matched in Harry, they seem like they’re the same because they _are._

The next few hours are a blur. They ride weird kiddie ride after weird kiddie ride, Snow White followed by Mr. Toad followed by Pinocchio. None of them have long lines and once they’re inside Harry realizes why, it’s because these things are _scary_ and dark and the animatronics haven’t changed since the sixties, so it all seems vaguely cursed. This trio of rides would have left him unsettled earlier in the day, but now that Louis is spinning him around to press greedy, hot-wet kisses to his mouth every time there’s a lull in conversation, he doesn’t even _notice._ He can _laugh_ at the weird stuff, hold Louis’s hand and fix his fringe and thumb along the pretty laugh lines at the tails of his eyes and tell him, _god, you’re so fit, can hardly believe this is real_ and listen to Zayn’s subsequent gagging sound to know it _is_ real, that Louis is right here with him, giddy and in love. 

They snog on all the dark rides and shriek in the appropriate places and take cheesy, over the top selfies in line. It’s so much fun and suddenly Harry _loves_ Disneyland, wants his own pair of ears embroidered in his name, wants his own yearly pass even though he lives in England. He doesn’t care, the sky is black and scattered in smudges of stars and everything feels _magical,_ Louis’s breath coming out in awed, quiet sighs against his neck as they stand tangled up, waiting for Peter Pan. 

“Hey, look, Niall just woke up and got our pictures,” Louis says, scrolling back in his texts and showing Harry his reply to their Space Mountain line selfie: _holy shit11!!!! did you two finally hook up?did it happen??? it’s 8 am but m gonna have a drink if this is real_ it says, and Harry’s mouth sort of drops open, eyes wide. 

“ _Finally_ hook up!? Has Niall had a bet on us or something?” he asks, slipping a hand into Louis's back pocket, stomach knotting up in longing at how _good_ the curve of his bum feels even through a layer of denim. 

“I dunno about a bet, but he’s been waiting for this for like…years. Every since I got pissed at that New Years party, remember? I cried on him, told him I was in love with you and he’s been rooting for me ever since,” Louis explains, and Harry can hardly _breathe,_ cannot fucking _fathom_ the Louis of a whole _year_ ago getting drunk and crying on Niall about _him._ He was like, fifteen and spotty. Louis was glorious and finishing 6th form. It doesn't make sense. 

“You told _Niall??_ About me?” he chokes out, sounding a little bit like he’s about to cry, and hey, he still might. 

“Erm, at the risk of sounding embarrassing, _all_ of our friends back home know. I wasn’t exactly subtle, Harold. Niall in particular tried to play wing-man a few times…I had him ask you if you ever thought of me like that once, you know. Maybe you remember. Anyway he said you got really weird and defensive like _Louis?! why would you think_ that _, how crazy!_ and he and I took it to mean you weren’t interested and tried to back off and get over you and well. We know how that worked out, yeah?” he says, grinning and shrugging like none of this is a big deal, like it isn't tilting Harry’s entire world on its axis. There’s the ghost of hurt to his voice, too, and it makes Harry’s heart break, _,_ so he rolls onto the balls of his feet so he’s more than a bit taller than Louis and drapes himself over his neck, squeezing him tight. 

“I was defensive because I thought he _knew,_ I thought _I_ was the obvious one. It was like…I dunno, liking you seemed so _hopeless,_ I didn’t want anyone at all to know because it was just like, this embarrassing thing that would never happen because you are _so_ far out of my league,” he explains, voice coming out sort of slurred and crushed in Louis’s arms. “M’sorry I ever made you think anything else. M’sorry I made you wait. Wanted you the second I saw you.” 

Louis slides his hands down Harry’s back and cups the ditch just below the swell of his bum, pulling him closer so their hips line up and they stumble, very nearly knocking into the family beside them. Zayn clears his throat loudly, but still, Louis doesn’t let him go, just stands there holding Harry and swallowing thickly like he’s trying to stave off tears before he says anything. “I’m not out of your league, you’re mad,” is what he eventually ends up saying, very soft, so soft in fact Harry almost loses it to the din of Disney music playing on the overhead. “You’re brilliant. You don’t even know it.” 

_Show me,_ Harry wants to say, pulse racing. _Show me how brilliant you think I am, burn it into my skin so when I’m away from you I can touch the scars and know you want me. Take me home and reduce me to ash._

_“_ You guys are making like…everyone stare at us,” Zayn grumbles. “I feel like I’m in a rom-com.” 

“Maybe they’re staring because you're so beautiful they’re trying to figure out if you’re an alien or not,” Harry offers, letting go of Louis to grin cheekily at Zayn, who really is a great sport, considering how excessive they’re being. But like, Harry couldn’t possibly _stop,_ not now, not after suffering through the bulk of today thinking he was going to be thrown away at the end of the night. He’s touch-drunk and dizzy with disbelief and if he doesn't have his hands on Louis, it starts to not feel real again, and he needs it to feel real. 

Louis hugs him from behind, pushing his face between his shoulder blades and biting his blazer. “They’re definitely looking at us, Hazzaboo,” he says through a mouthful of cotton and wool blend before spitting it out, kissing the wet spot he left in the fabric. “Zayn’s used to be ogled, if he’s actually noticing it then there’s been a significant uptick, yeah Z?” 

“Right,” he says, sighing as they advance in line, drawing closer and closer to the boarding station. “It’s all you guys. But it’s fine, it’s cute. You’re cute. I’m glad everyone’s talking and honest now, and that all of Louis’s friends back home can finally quit mopping up his drunk tears over you. I luckily only get texts about it, since m’all the way over here.” 

Harry shakes his head, still stunned that Louis has not only been talking to Niall and apparently their other friends about him, but texting _Zayn about it,_ like he was important enough to warrant a mention to even Z _ayn,_ glamorous model Zayn in California. “What did those texts say?” he asks, waggling his eyebrows ay Zayn expectantly. 

Without missing a beat, Zayn launches into Louis’s dirty laundry in a mocking, singsong voice. “ _Harry is so beautiful when he sleeps , when harry eats he sticks his tongue out first, isn't that cute, Z help, i’m getting boners every night sleeping next to harry—“_

“Oh my _god,_ shut up Zayn, he doesn’t need to know how creepy and pathetic I was!” Louis yelps, reaching into the space between them to bat uselessly at Zayn, who easily moves out of the way like he was anticipating it. “Harry, don't listen to this traitor.” 

Harry is listening though, listening intently with his mouth open in awe, heart thrilling at every word. “You did?!” he asks Louis, palm spayed over the wild thud of his heart. “Because I did too, oh my god. Sleeping with you was a nightmare. I was going _mad._ ” 

Louis’s face softens up a bit, eyes twinkling as he shakes his head and takes Harry’s face between his palms to kiss him, soft and sweet and deep all at once. “Of course I was. You sleep in the tiniest pants, I just about died every night,” he says quietly and into Harry's lips, like he doesn't want such a raw, filthy truth to touch the air, to be heard by anyone else. “S’why I talked you out of practice-snogging last night. I knew I was gonna…that I wouldn't be able to sleep next to you after that. I’d want you too bad.” 

“You can have me,” Harry tells him, stealing kiss after kiss, realizing it’s not stealing at all, it’s giving, they’re _his._ “You _have_ me,” he corrects, and Louis sighs into the heat of them, and together, they sway. 

—-

Peter Pan is amazing; Harry thought it would just be another creepy little cart jerking around corners while things jumped out at out them, but it’s actually ships suspended from the ceiling, and it feels like you’re _flying._ They fly over London and he has a sudden surge of missing home, the grey and the green and the brick, but then he remembers it doesn't matter where he is, if Louis is with him, he's _home._ Whether that’s in London or flying over fake London in Anaheim, California. It’s anywhere. 

When they get off Peter Pan, Fantasyland is mostly deserted save for cast members, a few wandering couples with their heads close together, or mums with kids passed out in their strollers, heading towards Main Street. In the wild, echoey-emptiness they ride the carousel with like, five other people maximum and Louis makes Zayn take a picture of him kissing Harry across the divide between their respective horses so he can send it to Niall in triumph. Niall texts back a picture of a shot of bourbon next to a cup of coffee, and it takes them the whole ride to stop laughing about it. 

After that they ride _It’s a Small World_ and Harry and Louis sit close with their knees touching, pointing at each new country and shouting its name in unison, kissing afterwards because anything is an excuse to kiss, now. After that they ride the teacups and it’s the last thing they’re going to do before the park closes, and somehow that seems fitting. Everything is spinning around them in a blur of color and light an laughter an magic and in the midst of it is Louis, the only solid thing, his radiant smile and golden skin and crinkled eyes sparkling in catchlights, the center of Harry’s word. And when they step off Harry is dizzy, and dizzy, and dizzy, and Louis’s hands and lips are everywhere, and the stars spin above them in a milky-way haze, and he’s never been so fucking happy in his entire life. 

They’ve already passed through the exit gates and are waiting for a Tram back to the parking structure when Zayn looks up from his phone, eyes bright and apologetic behind his sunglasses. “Shit, just remembered we never met a princess for you, Harry. Sorry mate.” 

Harry looks up from where his face was buried in Louis’s shoulder, breathing him in long, greedy lungfuls from his hoodie. “Hm?” he says, blinking in the sudden light. The exhaustion from the day and not sleeping the night before is all finally catching up with him, and there’s an ache in his solar plexus, his feet hurt, he’s loopy. But he doesn’t care one bit, he’s _Louis’s,_ Louis loves him, Louis wants him, Louis told Niall about him a year ago and has been getting stupid annoying hard ons every morning _too._ All is right in the world. “Oh, princesses. Right. That’s all right, guess we’ll have to go again sometime, yeah? I got like, really distracted.” 

Louis giggles and Zayn makes a face, shrugging. “I’ll come back with you guys some day if you’re into it. It will probably be less awkward next time, anyway.” Harry and Louis must look offended or prepared to defend themselves or something because Zayn hastily adds, “Not that this was terrible, or anything. I’m glad to be around for this milestone. It’s just nice you’re actually together now instead of pretending to be and half pretending you don't want to be pretending. Or whatever was going on.”

“You tell me, Z, it was your genius idea,” Louis grumbles as their Tram arrives and they board, dragging tired feet before they collapse onto the benches. 

“Hey,” Zayn says, poking Louis’s arm. “Was a genius idea.” 

Harry winkles his nose as he sags into Louis’s side, too tired really to join in on this conversation. Really, he would have loved to find out about how Louis felt in a _different,_ more direct manner. He’s still a little angru when he thinks about it too much, but at the end of the night, it doesn't matter and he can’t actually care, because Louis is _here._ Drumming his fingers idly on Harry’s rib cage under his blazer, turning to press slow, lingering kisses into the wreck of his hair. 

Yeah, Harry can’t complain one bit. 

They make it to the parking structure and head up the escalators to the car, since Zayn offered to drive them to their motel. It’s only once Harry’s sitting in the backseat alone (Zayn insisted _someone_ sit up front with him lest he feel ‘like a fucking chauffeur’ and Louis offered) that the reality of what they’re about to _do_ hits him. Zayn is taking them to a motel. With a bed. And privacy. And Louis…Louis apparently wants Harry as bad as Harry wants him, so it’s pretty obvious where this is headed. And _fuck_ Harry wants it, is Teacup-dizzy to even think about the _possibility_ of like…getting on his knees for Louis. Tasting him, seeing him up close, lying skin to skin and grinding. _God,_ he shivers at the mere images flashing across his mind, but at the same time, he’s sort of _terrified._ To the best of his knowledge, Louis has fucked and been fucked by a lot of boys. He has experience, he knows what to do without second guessing or messing up. He could probably make Harry feel really, really good with little to no effort at all. 

But Harry hasn’t even _snogged_ boys more than a handful of times, let alone anything beyond that. There was some drunk messy fumbling in his mum’s bed once with a Uni guy at a party a few months before he graduated, but halfway through he freaked out because of the bed thing and the fact he was in love with Louis and ended up making Neil or Nick or whatever this guy’s name was leave. So he's felt like, _one dick_ save for his own, and even then it was foir only six seconds through a pair of jeans after a Jaeger bomb and he doesn’t even think that counts. And it’s not like he thinks Louis won’t _want_ him anymore if he finds out Harry doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. It’s more like, he’d _rather_ be really good and suave and sexy. He wants to make Louis feel amazing, but he’s worried he’ll be too nervous to function properly, to bring him off right. 

By the time Zayn drops them off and hugs them goodbye, he’s a serious mess of anxiety, heart pounding and brain a tangled knot of insecurity that’s ever tightening because he’s way too sleepy and delirious to even stop himself with rational thought. Louis checks them into their motel, hands not even shaking at all as he takes his credit card and the room key from the desk attendant, shooting her a winning smile. “Second floor,” he tells Harry, pointing to the rickety metal stairs rising up from the parking lot, and _oh god, oh fuck,_ it’s happening, they’re about to be alone together in a motel room for the first time since the truth came out. 

Harry is all chattering teeth and tremors as he follows Louis up, trying to distract himself from the nerves by observing how weird this motel is. It’s not actively Disney themed or anything but it looks like Snow White’s house, all cute and wooden and pointy roofed, with fiberglass snow on the slant and Christmas lights even though it’s definitely May. 

Once inside their room Louis throws the duffel on the floor and turns to Harry, who is taking his time locking the door, palms sweaty. “Haz are you _cold?”_ Louis asks, watching him. “You’re shivering. Did the fake snow get to you?” 

He’s joking but Harry feels called out, wiping his clammy hands on his jeans before he mechanically walks over to Louis, struggling to make his legs move. “M’a little cold,” he lies, air huffing out of him as Louis pulls him close, hugging him to his chest and rubbing his arms. 

“Let me warm you up,” Louis says in low voice, tilting Harry’s face up to kiss him deep and filthy and _jesus,_ it’s hard for Harry to think of _anything_ when Louis _kisses_ like that, like he wants to swallow Harry whole, like he cannot fucking get enough. Harry tangles his hands in Louis’s hair and kisses him back fiercely, trying to pour all his fear and his apprehension into the slick-rough mess of their mouths to tell Louis what’s going on without really _telling him,_ because words are hard and he’s tired and stupid with it, because Louis makes him forget everything but how good it feels to touch him. They snog messily for a bit, stumbling around their motel room, and at some point Louis pulls away and presses their brows together fiercely to whisper, “I’ve never been so fucking happy in my life.”

Harry’s heart explodes, ricocheting into his throat and choking him so his voice comes out weak and reedy when he says, “me either. M’so insanely happy.” Then, because he’s figuring out he can’t lie anymore, not with Louis rolling their hips together hot and filthy, his chubbed-up cock grinding into Harry’s. “M’also _insanely_ nervous. I’m sorry, I’ve just…I’ve never been with a boy before and I want to be good and I don’t know how,” he explains in a messy rush, blinking up at Louis wish hot cheeks, glassy eyes. 

Louis blinks back at him, thumbing over his lips as his brow crinkles. “Never? What about that Nick guy you took upstairs at your house that one time? Because _fuck_ I was so jealous I like, puked even though I’d had only two drinks or something. Ask Niall. “

Harry’s eyes flutter closed; he’s so overwhelmed, so bowled over to think of Louis noticing these things let alone getting jealous about them, getting _sick_ over them. He’d been so wrapped up in his own consuming love he hadn’t even considered that was why Louis got so drunk that night. “We just messed around over our clothes, I felt weird and I just…I wanted it to be you and it wasn’t so we stopped. He was nice about it, but yeah. Nothing happened.I have no fucking idea what I’m doing, sorry if that’s like…disappointing,” he mumbles, voice trailing off. 

Louis is very very quiet for a moment, just looking at Harry with dark eyes as he thumbs over the curves of his cheeks, down into his pulse, where he presses gently for the length of a shaky inhale. “Nothing about you could ever be disappointing, Harry. I’m in love with you…I’m nothing but in love with you,” he tells him eventually, and comes out so so so soft it scrapes low in Harry's gut, makes his eyes well up and his hands tighten reflexively in Louis’s clothes. “I love you,” Louis repeats as Harry sinks into him, hiding his face in the ditch of his neck and shoulder, making the skin there tear-damp as he wipes his nose. “We can go slow,” Louis tells him then, thumbing up his spine, touch careful and reverent. “We don’t even have to have sex, if you’re not ready…kissing, just _kissing_ you is the best thing I've ever felt, yeah? We’ll go at your pace.” 

Harry coughs, throat feeling thick with overwhelm, with _gratitude. “I…_ that’s really nice of you,” he mumbles. “But I _want_ to have sex…like _god,_ Louis. I think about you fucking me all the time. Too much. M’just nervous, worried I’ll be bad at it. I dunno.” 

Louis’s hands still and clutch at the word _fucking,_ but he recovers and smooths them back up the slope of Harry’s shoulders, to cup the back of his neck. “Okay. That’s good…I think about fucking you too much, too. Just so you know,” he clumsily admits, and Harry’s insides flip over, he’s hot and shivery and so, so in love the sensation makes him dizzy. “And I _promise_ it’s alright you’re nervous and inexperienced…but that doesn’t mean you’ll be _bad_ at it? Just the fact I want you so much will make it good. Promise. Plus,” he adds, voice getting low and trembly, full of breath. “I think it’s really hot you’ve never done anything before this? Like. Means m’your first, the first guy who gets to touch you. The first mouth you’re gonna have on your cock, the first _cock_ you’re gonna have in your mouth… _fuck,”_ he gasps, rutting his hips into Harry’s reflexively, making Harry whimper at the hot, dirty friction. “It turns me on so much, Hazza. M’gagging for it.” 

“God,” Harry manages to choke out before he’s kissing Louis, pulling back to pitch forward into the needy heat of him, tongue swirling filthy in his mouth, pushing in and out past his teeth like a sloppy fuck. His skin is on fire and he’s hard in his pants, straining against the seam, thin fabric adhering to the sticky tip with precum as Louis grinds against him, both of them struggling to stay upright. He wants Louis so much he feels _mad_ with it, stomach roiling and hands trembling as he cards them through his hair over and over again. And he’s still nervous, sure, but more than that he’s arousal-drunk and _hungry_ and exhausted past some breaking point, and it’s hard to worry too much when Louis’s touch is so firm and so certain, grabbing him by the biceps and walking him backwards until they’re tripping and tumbling onto the hotel bed. 

Harry kicks off his shoes and tries to breathe as Louis gets him out of his blazer, tugging the already wide neck of his tee shirt lower, so he can kiss his collar bones, mouth up his neck, press greedy, rough kisses into his pulse. “You can take my shirt off,” Harry mumbles, voice coming out muffled under the pressure of Louis’s lips. “And my jeans, if you want to.” 

“Shit. Course I want to,” Louis rasps out, sitting back and hauling Harry up off the bed enough he can peel his shirt off before smoothing his hands up his torso, his heaving ribcage and stomach. “My god, you are so—“ he cuts himself off to swallow a few times, eyes roving all over Harry, drinking in so much pale skin and barely-there muscle. Harry has always been a bit self-conscious of the way his chest seems toneless no matter how much his shoulders broaden, his tummy and hips still soft, abdominals hidden under a layer of boyish fat. But the way Louis is looking a him makes all that uncertainty just melt away. He feels _sexy,_ like his body is hot and desirable and worth touching, because under the searing heat of Louis’s gaze, his skinniness or youth don’t even matter. “You’re fucking beautiful. I want to put my mouth everywhere,” Louis breathes, hand trembling up Harry’s side and resting over his heart before thumbing one of his puffy nipples into a taut nub. “Just. Can’t believe how lucky I am.” 

“ _I_ feel so lucky,” Harry tells him, cheeks hot and blush as Louis drops his head to suck the nipple into his hot, sharp mouth, groaning as he bites him. “You’re the fittest boy I've ever seen in my life.” Harry breathes as he squirms, lifting his hips at the nervy sensation of Louis’s teeth in his flesh, followed by the slick-wet sort of his tongue lapping the sting away. “ _Fuck,_ that feels good.” 

“Yeah?” Louis asks, looking at Harry through his fringe, expression coy as he continues to lick his nipple, flicking it with his tongue. “M’glad. Always wondering if you’re sensitive here, your nipples always look so _good,_ showing through your shirt and stuff and _fuck,_ just want to bite them.” 

“Oh god,” Harry murmurs as Louis gets his teeth in again, bite gentle but firm before he sucks hard, the hot pang of it going straight to Harry’s cock. “You can do this to me whenever you want.” 

“I want to all the time, you don’t know what you’re agreeing to,” Louis jokes, pulling away breathlessly, with spots of color on his cheeks. He’s palming all over Harry’s chest, rubbing his other nipple before mauling up to his neck, back down to the soft swell of his hips where he digs his nails in. “Get your jeans off yeah? Wanna see you all chubbed up in your pants, wanna see you filling them up,” he breathes, and Harry’s _a lot_ more than chubbed up at this point, he nods anyway and unbuttons his flies with shaking hands before shimmying out of his jeans. 

“I’m…yeah I’m really turned on,” Harry warns him, flopping back down onto the mattress after kicking free of his clothes. He fights the urge to cover himself by cupping his cock and the mortifyingly obvious wet spot on the front of his grey pants, but instead he lets his hands flutter nervously to Louis’s shoulders, where he thumbs into muscle through the layers of fabric. “Sorry if that’s a lot.” 

Louis might have stopped breathing. He rests his forehead on Harry’s chest so he can stare between his thighs, which look soft and pink and peachy right now, alarmingly vulnerable. “Harry,” he breathes after a moment, shifting his weight so he can gently rub his knuckles up the underside of Harry’s cock, making it twitch noticeably in his pants. “Jesus christ. Feel like I could come just looking,” he whispers, touch getting bolder as he squeezes Harry a bit, eliciting a sharp, reedy whimper. “You’re all wet, aren't you? So fucking hard and wet for me, _so_ gorgeous,” he mumbles, and Harry can’t _take_ it, this is so much and Louis feels so unbelievably good and all he’s doing is teasing him through his _pants._ It’s insane. Plus, there’s the fact Harry is absurdly exposed right now and that _should_ be terrifying, being broken open like that, but Louis is so tender and so careful that it’s not. Harry feels cherished, and precious, and it sort of makes him want to cry. 

“I love you,” he mumbles, rolling his hips into Louis’s warm hand, not even caring if he seems greedy or desperate. “So much.”

“ I love _you_ ,” Louis tells him, tilting up to catch his lips in a wet, spit-slick kiss. “What do you want? What can I do to you?” 

_Everything,_ of course, is the answer, but Harry gets a hold of himself, takes a deep breath as he settles into the bed. “I…can you take your clothes off, too? Can I see you?” He asks, thumbing down the column of Louis’s throat towards his pulse, wanting so many things at once. 

Louis nods, pressing a kiss to the center of Harry’s chest before sitting up and stripping out of his hoodie and the navy and white shirt underneath, and it’s unceremonious but it’s still _so_ fucking hot, Harry's breath catching in his throat as Louis lifts his hips to wiggle his perfect bum out of his chinos, thighs strong and muscled and _god,_ Harry wants to be crushed between them, smothered, wants to feel the scour of that golden hair under his tongue. Louis kicks his chinos to the floor and then, in nothing but his tight, clingy red pants, he settles back down next to Harry, twining their legs. “Hi,” he says, grinning and blushing and looking so radiant it’s hard to believe he isn't the whole solar system housed in a single boy. “That better?” 

“Yes, so much better,” Harry whispers, smoothing his hands up Louis’s firm chest, _dizzy_ with how soft and hot the skin is. “You’re perfect.” 

Louis snorts, reaching up to wind one of Harry’s curls around his fingers and tug gently. “Nah, far from it,” he mumbles, corner of his mouth turning down kissably. “But I’m glad you think so. I thought for so long you just weren’t attracted to me like this? That I wasn’t fit enough to deserve you, or something.” 

Harry gasps, affronted. “That’s the stupidest bullshit I have ever heard,” he tells him, scooting forward to fix his mouth on the shimmering thud of Louis’s pulse, eyelids fluttering at the tang of salt, delicious and so _boy. “_ M’obsessed with you, always have been. Even before I was proper in love with you I still thought you were so fucking hot, still fantasized about sucking your cock,” he confesses, coloring fiercely, and Louis’s mouth drops open in response, eyes wide. 

“Really?!” he asks. “That in particular?” 

“Well, yes,” Harry admits in a jumble, rubbing his burning face into Louis’s chest and fidgeting, which turns into grinding because any sort of friction is _maddening_ right now, hot and rough and slow and delectable. “Among other things. Also thought about snogging you and about your hands on my cock and like, sleeping next to you and traveling the world with you and having, a dog with you. Which is how I figured out it was proper love, I guess.” 

“Jesus,” Louis mumbles, tilting Harry up by his chin and kissing him, deep and filthy, tongue and teeth and fire. “I think of all that with you, too, I think of everything,” he prays into the litany of their kisses, swollen lips and breath coming out in messy cascades. “Come here,” he says then, even though Harry is already so close. 

They snog for what seems like forever, and Harry gets to touch Louis wherever he can reach, and that alone feels like the most magical thing in the world. He wants to drown in Louis, can’t get enough of his skin, his smooth toned shoulders and his flexing forearms and the lewd curve of his arse, the way it fills Harry’s hands like they’re made to be touching like this. He’s afraid to push his fingers under the waistband of Louis’s pants even though he wants to _desperately,_ but that just means his wild, roving touch ends up wandering lower, to Louis’s legs and _god,_ he could squeeze and knead and raze nails up his thighs _forever._

Louis feels so strong and compact and he _moves_ so much, pushing Harry onto his back to grind into him, rolling onto his own back to pull Harry into a filthy straddle _over_ him, their hard cocks rubbing together through layers of sticky wet cotton, friction and subduction and fire. It’s so _much_ and Harry can hardly process him, can hardly believe he gets to _do this,_ roll around in bed with Louis Tomlinson and snog him so thoroughly there’s spit on his chin and he feels like he's suffocating if he’s not breathing in Louis’s sweet exhalations. 

At some point Louis shoves him down again and mouths back to his nipples, which he alternates between, sucking in greedy little pulses until Harry’s groaning, dizzy, on the edge of something _insane. “_ Lou,”he manages to get out, voice almost unrecognizably shot. “Touch me,” he says then, taking Louis’s hand where it’s affixed to his side and pushing it down to his waistband. “Please.” 

“Fuck,” Louis murmurs in a broken voice, biting the nipple he has in his mouth, making it even more swollen and pink and spit-shiny. “You want me to touch you?” he asks, hooking his fingers into the elastic of Harry’s pants as his palm brushes over the hard, flexing shaft of his cock so gently it makes Harry very nearly _sob_ in frustration. “Here?” 

“Yes, there,” Harry asks, shifting his hips, thrusting uselessly into the air, just _needing_ Louis so bad, needing the heat of his palm, his sure grip, needing to _know,_ finally, what it feels like to be touched by another boy. By _this_ boy, _his_ boy. The love of his fucking life. “Please.” 

“God,” Louis murmurs, cupping Harry through the fabric and rubbing up and down him, thumbing over the crown. “You’re so _big._ Bigger than I thought, I could fucking _choke_ on you, baby,” he mumbles, and _jesus fuck,_ another bead of precum sluices out of him as he pulses because he's not sure there’s _anything_ hotter than Louis saying he’s his _baby._

_“_ I love when you call me that,” he admits, writhing on the bed, feeling so sexy and _pretty_ somehow, spoiled under the heat of Louis’s gaze. “Makes me feel good.” 

“Baby?” Louis repeats, lips ghosting across Harry’s sternum as he shifts down the bed. “That?” 

“Yes,” Harry murmurs, flush climbing down his throat. Louis is playing with him, feeling his cock through his pants, curling his fist around the shaft, cupping his balls and rolling them gently in his palm, just _exploring,_ taking his damn time. 

“Baby, _my_ baby, my boy,” Louis murmurs into him, rubbing his stubble-rough cheek against his stomach, making Harry’s skin turn pink. “Loved you so for so long, can’t believe you’re finally mine.” 

Harry feels like he’s coming apart, like he can’t breathe, like Louis’s words _alone_ are going to make him come he’s so wet and messy. He humps into Louis’s palm gracelessly, begging with his body, since his whole vocabulary has been reduced to “Louis, Lou. _Please.”_

Louis is inhaling from Harry’s skin, greedy and moved as he adjusts himself, far enough away he has room to move his arm properly and jerk Harry’s length through his pants, close enough he can still kiss him, tastes his sweat, breath coming out in huffs, close enough Harry can feel them ghost over his cock. “I can smell you,” Louis breathes, lashes wet as they flutter against Harry’s skin. “It’s perfect.” 

“Oh god,” Harry whimpers, squirming as his cheeks burn, revelling in this dirty, safe-feeling brand off embarrassment. “You like it? The way I smell?” 

“Makes my mouth water,” Louis tells him, finally tugging his waistband down gently and carefully, breath held as he tucks it below Harry’s erection, which bobs obscenely in the humid space between them. “Oh god, look at you,” Louis says in a broken voice, fitting his hand around Harry, thumbing at the vein on the underside, licking his lips. “Fucking huge, so hot,” he mumbles, tugging Harry’s cock with long, slow strokes. It feels _so much better_ than Harry’s own hand, somehow, electric and absolving even though Louis’s hands are smaller. “That feel good, baby?” 

“So good, perfect,” Harry babbles, fucking into the tight ring of Louis’s hand, loving the pressure, drunk on the way it all _looks_ , red and slick and throbbing under the sweep of Louis’s thumb. “Not gonna last long.” 

“Too bad, because I could do this all night,” Louis teases, licking a wet, teasing strip of Harry’s stomach as he touches him, picking up the pace, twisting his hand at the crown. “Never want to stop touching you.” Harry’s nearly sobbing now, lifting his hips and thrusting messily, the motion of Louis’s hand becoming a filthy blur as his eyes get tear-hazy and Louis works him over harder, faster, so nervy it almost hurts. “Fuck, baby, come for me, yeah? Come all over yourself for me, want to see you—”

Harry yelps and whites out and _loses it,_ hips snapping and locking up as he spills over Louis’s fist, in the hottest, most stomach plunging orgasm of his _life._

He’s still riding the aftershocks when his vision comes back, stomach lurching with each of Louis’s slow, teasing touches. He’s still playing with Harry’s cock, getting his mess of come all over his fingers and using it to lubricate the shift of his palm. “Oh my god,” Harry says weakly, stunned by the image of his own trembling fingers sifting through Louis’s hair. “That was so _good.”_

_“_ You _look_ so good,” Louis breathes, fingers nudging down over Harry’s sac, leaving shining trails of wet. “I…do you touch your own arse? Finger yourself a bit?” he asks, hand shifting tentatively lower, like he’s not _done_ with Harry, and _god,_ that’s so fucking hot, Harry feels so turned on, turned out, taken _apart._

_“_ Erm, a little,” Harry admits, hole flexing at the memory, the times he worked himself open in the shower, not sure if he liked it or just the idea of it, how naughty it was. “Didn’t really know what I was doing. But like. If you want to touch me there you can, I’d like that,” he tells Louis, cock twitching as he says it, half-hard and still come-sticky in the sheath of his foreskin. 

“Fuck, yeah?” Louis whispers, fingers clutching reflexively, digging into the stretch of Harry’s perineum, this place he's never thought of before, never imagined would feel good to have touched by a boy. “I…god. I want to finger you so bad…s’ok if you can’t get hard or come again, I just want to touch you, feel you inside…” Louis explains, fingers nudging closer to the mad flutter of Harry’s hole. 

“Please, please Louis,” Harry whimpers, rolling his hips, shifting down the bed because he wants to be level with Louis, wants to _kiss_ him, misses the taste of his breath. “I want that.” 

“Jesus,” Louis murmurs, collecting the still-hot mess of come off of Harry’s shuddering abdominals, coating his fingers in it slowly, methodically. It looks like a lot in Louis’s delicate hand, and Harry often shoots pretty big loads, but something about _seeing_ it there shiny on Louis’s skin tugs at his stomach, makes him feel shaky and feverish. “Fuck, gonna push this all up inside you, gonna get you wet everywhere,” Louis says in a low, breathy-hot voice and _yeah,_ Harry is definitely gonna get hard again. He shuts his eyes and gasps as Louis slicks up his arsehole in his own come, breath catching at the slippery, dirty drag of fingers against somewhere so private. 

Louis rubs it into his rim, softening him up, getting him wet so when he pushes his index finger up to the second knuckle it goes easy. Harry keens and pushes down on it, amazed at how much _better_ this is already is compared to his own fumblings. “Fuck, that’s so good, _fuck,”_ he whimpers, heart pounding in his chest as Louis gets up on his knees, fitting himself between Harry’s thighs so he's not lying beside him, but looming over him. 

“Yeah? You like getting touched here?” Louis asks, crooking and feeling around inside Harry before carefully pushing another finger alongside the first. The stretch hurts so good Harry can’t speak, only nod as he rolls his hips, bringing his bent kneed closer to his chest to spread himself, showing Louis everything. “God you’re beautiful, so pretty around me,” Louis hisses, almost to himself, eyes fixed so wide and stunned and full to the brim with pupil as he stares at this filthy place they’re joined, his fingers palm-deep in Harry’s clutching hole. “Feel ok?” 

Harry’s panting too hard to get words out so he nods a lot, humping desperately so he impales himself on Louis’s fingers. “Yes. Yes,” he finally gasps, voice low and ripped and staccato. “I can take more.. Like you can fuck me, you can move,” he explains, and Louis makes a wordless noise in his throat as he pumps his fingers in and out Harry slowly and deliberately. 

“Like this?” he asks breathlessly, leaning forward on his knees to he can kiss Harry, catch his swollen, gasping mouth and lick into him. His tongue mimics the motion of his fingers for a bit, pantomiming the way he’s fucking in and out of his hole, deep and thorough. It’s _so_ much deeper than Harry has ever been able to touch himself, a nervy, maddening sort of pressure that’s building in his gut, getting him close. Harry rides the sensations as best he can, feeling like his legs are everywhere and he’s drenched in sweat and looks a mess right now, desperate and out of control, on a precipice poised to fall. “God, baby, the sounds you’re making, driving me mad,” Louis gasps into his mouth, fingers making a _snick snick_ sound as they push in and out of Harry’s arse, still lubricated by his come. “Sound so pretty. You gonna come again for me baby?” 

Harry _is,_ but not without touching himself, so he manages to force himself to let go of Louis’s shoulders with one hand so he can grappe between their bodies and wrap around his cock. “Yeah,” he says, tugging on himself, loving the way Louis whines as he watches him, fingers stuttering to a stop. “So close.” 

“You’re taking me so good,” Louis whimpers, fucking deep into him again, opening Harry up relentlessly, thumbing over his stretched rim as he pistons in and out. “Meant for me to be in you.” 

_God, fuck,_ Harry thinks, thrashing as he wanks, every movement of his body jerky and desperate and exaggerated he’s so fucking close. He _wants_ Louis in him, wants more fingers, his whole hand, his _cock._ He imagines that for a second, Louis’s toned back golden and glistening in a layer of sweat, thighs flexing as he fucks Harry, pounds him into the mattress on his stomach so he can’t _breathe._ It’s too hot to think about, makes him feel crazy and like he’s going to fly apart into bits, makes him clench his eyes shut tight against an onslaught of static. 

It’s only when he forces them open to steal a greedy glance at Louis’s prick, trapped in his tight red pants with the noticeable wet spot stretched tight over his cockhead, that he comes. It just looks so _good,_ hard and thick and suckable as it strains against Louis’s Y front, and Harry gets to have it _in_ him some day and that thought is just too much. He groans low and long and squeezes himself as he comes again, a single blurt of white that drips down onto his chest even though his hole clenches madly for what feels like _minutes,_ gripping Louis’s fingers, holding him close, swallowing him into dirty heat. 

The room looms strange and bright and glittery when Harry finally comes to and opens his eyes, tears making everything distorted, sticky on his cheeks as he blinks. Louis still has his fingers in him but he’s not moving them, just keeping them there, stuffing Harry full as he presses kisses all over his sternum, his shoulders, weird places Harry has no name for, that have never even existed on himself until Louis’s mouth was there. The little roll of softness near his armpit, dusted in downy hair. The hollow of his throat. The inside of his elbow, where his pulse is still pounding in his veins. “You ok?” Louis asks, voice raspy, awed. “You came forever.” 

“I’m dead,” Harry mumbles, then realizing that sounds morbid and adding, “And like…reborn.” 

“You’re perfect,” Louis whispers, kissing Harry’s chin. “M’gonna pull out, ok? Might hurt a bit.” 

It burns but mostly Harry just hates that Louis isn’t _in_ him anymore, grieves the sudden, tingling emptiness. “Ungh,” he moans, writhing down the bed, chasing Louis’s puckered wet fingers. “Fuck. That was the best thing I've ever felt.” 

“You’re gonna be sore tomorrow, you took _a lot,_ wanted it really hard,” Louis says, grinning. “It was amazingly hot.” 

“I _want_ to be sore tomorrow,” Harry tells him, meaning it, hole still spasming around nothing, wanting more. “Want to feel you always.” 

“Harry, baby,” Louis mumbles, leaning forward and catching his mouth. “You’ve got me always.” 

Then Louis snogs him slow and deep and thoroughly, choking him on his tongue, pulling back to watch him pant helplessly before diving back in. Harry is so preoccupied with the wild storm of their kissing that he doesn't even notice right away that Louis is touching himself, the whole of his weight propped onto one elbow as he holds himself up over Harry, fisting his cock in his with the other. Harry starts shifting his hips in time with motion subconsciously, but it isn't until Louis breaks their kiss to exhale hotly on Harry’s chest, panting erratically, cheeks so red, that he figures out what’s going on.. “Fuck, m’close,” he says, and Harry registers for the first time that Louis’s hand is moving rapidly between them because he’s _wanking._ His _cock_ is out, and Harry hasn’t even gotten a good _look_ at it. 

“Wait,” he mumbles, lifting his head and craning his necks he can properly ogle Louis. And _god,_ god.. “Fuck,” he murmurs as he drinks in the sight, Louis’s cock flexing in his palm, the tip so red and smooth and shiny as Harry’s mouth floods with saliva. “Louis,” he says, and Louis’s breath catches as the sound of his own name. 

“You like it?” He asks, voice snagging over something like nerves, sheepish and apologetic. “You’re more than a bit bigger, quite frankly..” 

“I don’t care, never seen anything so good,” Harry breathes, all the air tight and impossible in his throat, choking him. “God. Want it in me,” he admits, stomach curling up at the idea and Louis coughs, sounding startled. 

“Soon,” he tells him as he works his fingers over his own length, everything shiny with precum in this way that makes Harry’s mouth flood, his tongue lash back and forth against the inside of his teeth involuntarily. “But I won’t last that long, can hardly last now, just looking at you like that, all fucked and perfect,” Louis explains, rocking forward to kiss Harry wet and sloppy. “M’gonna make myself come, right here all over you if you want it.” 

Fuck, Harry wants it. It’s one of many things he wants, though, every desire getting messy and tangled in his head. “And I want…want it closer, want to feel it,” he adds, not even knowing what he means save for that he wants Louis’s cock close enough to smell, close enough to make out the thud in his veins, every pulse and flicker and twitch. “You can come on my face,” he realizes, saying it aloud and feeling his gut twist and clench painfully in response. “In my mouth.” 

“ _Jesus_ , Harry,” Louis sobs, squeezing himself hard at the base of his cock perhaps to stave off an orgasm. Harry is staring intently, tongue sweeping rhythmically over his lips as he imagines the way Louis will taste, how heavy the weight of that cock will be on his tongue.

“Please, please, I mean it, I need that,” Harry begs as he realizes Louis hasn’t moved, it still tugging on himself without getting anywhere where he could possibly empty himself onto Harry’s drooling lips any time soon. “ _Louis,”_ he whines, taking it upon himself to start wiggling down the bed. “ _Please.”_

_“_ God Harry, _fuck,”_ Louis says then, making a sudden fist in Harry’s hair and holding him fast, making his scalp smart before it tingles. “ _Stop—_ you were…you were nervous, earlier, remember? You sure you want this?” he asks, words almost nonsensical because Harry wants it _so bad_ and it’s _so obvious_ that he can’t imagine Louis would need further guidance. 

“Of course,” Harry groans, mouth parted and panting as Louis stares down at it, fucking his hand with little, stilted bucks of his hips even though he just said _stop._ ” Please. You can keep wanking, just wank into my mouth. I’ll just, I’ll keep it open for you, just want—”

“Ok, go on, please,” Louis says, cutting him off as he lets go, hand fast and rough over himself. “M’close.” 

Triumphant, Harry giddily shuffles down the bed a bit and Louis adjusts his position, rolling fully onto his side so he’s exposed, cock thick and red and delicious-looking as Harry rolls over too, keeping his lips parted obediently. Once they’re aligned Louis makes a pained sound in his throat, free hand fumbling for Harry’s hair, which he musses desperately. Harry licks his lips and just _watches_ the spectacle, so close he can hardly believe it, the sweat-and-musk smell of Louis’s auburn pubes making him dizzy, making him _want. “_ Here,” he mumbles, shifting closer and reaching for Louis’s hip, which he grips tight, holding him still so he can guide Louis’s hand to rest the tip of his cock just against Harry’s lip. “Right here,” he slurs, and Louis cries out. 

His slit flexes and precum beads out obscenely, and _fuck,_ Harry _needs_ it, it’s a matter of _need_ and he’s beyond thinking, beyond language. He licks the smooth, hot underside of Louis’s crown with the tip of his tongue, lashing it back and forth slow and soft and wet. 

“Oh my god,” Louis chokes out, holding himself back so he doesn’t fuck into Harry’s mouth (which is a shame because Harry would fucking _love_ that.) “Hazza.” 

Harry is in a trance now, he’s _tasted_ Louis, the pure bitter salt of him, and he needs more. He licks up his precum, whining as he laves his tongue all over the head before popping just the tip of it into his mouth and tonguing the slit greedily. It’s too good so he slides down a bit, just fitting his lips over the whole of Louis’s cocked and suckling wet and gentle. 

Louis’s nails scrape against his scalp, his breath catches, his hand moves up and down his cock, grazing against Harry’s puffy lips on the odd stroke. It feels hot and dirty and Harry is in _heaven,_ kneading his thumbs into Louis’s skin and crying out when his cock starts to twitch between his lips, and he knows it’s coming. 

Louis makes an raw sound when he finished and Harry opens his mouth to groan helplessly, tongue wide to catch the hot, salty pulses of come as they land. Louis tastes _overwhelming,_ so much so Harry is gagging a the same time he’s swallowing, eyes watering and throat burning, every inch of him desperately wanting more. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him, Louis’s strangled breaths and his spasming muscles and his _cock_ in his _mouth,_ the so soft and so hard, all at once, twitching with aftershocks. 

It’s awhile before Louis comes down fully or manages to say anything, but the whole time he pets Harry’s hair, palm heavy and trembling as it cards through the curls, smoothes down his tear-sticky cheek, thumbs into the plush slick of his mouth, still tingling from Louis’s come. Harry feels safe and content, blinking here as Louis’s cock twitches and softens, shrinking back into his foreskin and leaving come glistening all over the sheets, on Harry’s cheek. “You taste so fucking amazing,” Harry says eventually, and Louis laughs, thumb pressing there it’s resting just under the shape of his dimple. 

“Your _mouth_ is amazing,” Louis rasps, voice gone. “I can’t…can’t believe you made that happened. Just sucked me off in the last second, made me explode. And to think, you were _worried_ about not being able to make me come,” he teases, and Harry squirms, grinning as he snuffles his way back up the bed to kiss Louis with his dirty mouth. 

“I stopped caring,” he mumbles into the soft slide of their lips. “Because I could tell…could tell how much you wanted me. That you were getting off on getting _me_ off and it like…didn’t matter what I did, you'd like it.” 

Louis nods silently, chewing the inside of his cheek a bit before answering, “It’s true. Like…we moved fast today, and that’s alright, but you know. If you _wanted_ to slow down, we could. Because I’d get off just looking at you, just touching you and snogging that pretty lips,” he explains, thumbing roughly over Harry’s mouth where it’s thick, split, swollen. “That would be enough. Anything you gave me would be enough.” 

Harry leans in and kisses him, drunk and giddy on the taste of his his spit, on the way Louis holds him so close, hands all over him, sticky from wanking. “Louis,” he mumbles, cupping the heat of his cheek in his palm. “You’re so sweet, perfect, really, but like. You don’t have to worry about _corrupting_ me or something. _I want_ all of this. Want every inch of you and I’ve waited a long time, ok?” 

Louis looks at him a long time, thumbing up the sides of his face to his temples, gentle and careful. “Yeah, ok,” he says, before kissing him. “Guess I’ll make it worth the wait, then.” 

“You already _have_ made it worth the wait,” Harry says, dipping down and catching his lips, kissing them fiercely, sharply, with his teeth in it. “To me you’re like. The happiest place on earth.” Louis is about to snort with laughter but Harry doesn’t _let_ him, swooping in with soft lips, quiet breaths. 

And as they snog heatedly, there are technically no fireworks this time, no smoke and no serenade, but Harry can see the explosions of light behind his eyelids anyway, feel the resounding boom, filling him like a heartbeat. 

—-


End file.
